Page 10 of No Strings Attached (Mated Fates #1)

Bahbi felt a double jolt of relief when he saw Trak enter the cage room. For one thing, here was help—someone who might actually have some idea about what to do for this terrible mess. And for another thing, it was someone who wouldn’t put his ass directly into the nearest sling.

Trak stood outside Vi’s cage and just shook his head, “Well Bahbi, not the best showing for your first duty watch.”

“Trak, she—”

“I know. I’ve been in the control room watching since she took the shock stick off you.”

“Why didn’t you help?” Bahbi was stunned.

Trak just shook his head again, “Because I had to wait for her to make a mistake if I was going to save you myself and not just hit the alarms and bring everyone running. How do you think that would have ended up for you?”

Bahbi’s instinct was to hang his head in shame, but the Garoxian’s paw around his throat prevented it.

“Don’t worry, kid,” Track said, as if he sensed Bahbi’s embarrassment. “We’ll—”

“Why don’t you skip the bullshit and just talk to me?” Violet was standing in the middle of the cage and arcing the shock stick in front of Trak’s face like a metronome. “Your friend’s life might just depend on how well the two of us can communicate. Negotiate. ”

Trak eyed the female standing there in Bahbi’s coverall, at least a size too big if not two sizes, with little pink toes poking out from beneath the too-long legs. Bahbi thought he seemed amused, but he gave her a little nod and half-bow.

“Of course. Let’s chat. My name is Trak.”

“Trak, fine. And I’m Vi. Are you a slave here like Bobby?”

Trak nodded, “Of course. All Trallians you encounter anywhere except on the planet Trallia are slaves.”

“And do you like it?”

“…like…it?” For the first time, Bahbi saw Trak rendered speechless. “Uh…no. Does anyone like being a fucking slave?” Trak thought about it for a moment, then turned, pointed at Caussus, and mused, “Maybe that guy back there.”

“Great. I’m not super psyched about being abducted from my planet, held captive, and sold into slavery either. See? Common fucking ground.” She crossed her arms, “Now let’s talk about how we can change all of our circumstances.”

“All of our…? You’re serious about wanting to free all of these…creatures? I mean, I listened to you talking to them, but I assumed you had a smarter plan than that. Like, you know, only freeing the useful and trustworthy ones.”

Acken interjected, “She does not!”

Vi ignored him and kept her focus on Trak, “Yes. I am serious. And what makes you the best judge of useful or trustworthy? What makes you capable of passing judgement on who should be allowed to be free and who should be sacrificed for our escape?”

Trak opened his mouth, held it, then closed it with a snap.

“Right,” Vi said. “That’s how that kind of thinking starts, the kind that ends up letting people like this Qlu motherfucker think they have the power to buy and sell anyone they want.”

“But…he does.”

“Wrong. He did . Until now. We’re going to expand his reality.”

“But…you’ve already made plans to leave the Ophidian behind. Isn’t that the same thing?”

“I never said we were leaving him behind. I just decided to ignore him for now. He’s an asshole.” She waived her hand dismissively, then turned toward the Ophidian’s cage, “Hey snake guy, do you really want to be the only one left in a cage when we get off this rock? Or are you going to put away that bullshit pride, grow some testicles, and join the team?”

“Fuuuck youuu, Viii.”

She turned back to Trak, “See? He’ll come along.”

“That didn’t sound like agreement.”

She shrugged. “He called me by my name. That’s what we Earthlings call the start of a beautiful friendship.”

The only response was a disgusted hiss.

Vi looked hard at Trak, “Look, I’ve been stuck in my own head for a long fucking time, crammed into a stasis pod wide awake for week after never-ending week. And I’ve been railing against what happened to me, utterly furious. I was taken from my planet to be sold at an auction, a fucking auction , like property .” She was pointing and gesticulating wildly. “But I had already decided that I wasn’t going to be victimized, that I was going to use my rage to either get out of this situation or die trying. That I was going to kill anyone who got in my way. Do you understand?”

Trak nodded. Bahbi was sure he was thinking about the dead Ulu.

“But today I realized that this terrible thing that has happened to me is nothing special. Because it happened to every single one of us in this room. Out here, apparently, it is exceedingly fucking common to have no regard for the sanctity of life.” Violet began to raise her voice, “But I say FUCK NO to that. Do you hear me? Fuck no for me, fuck no for you and you,” pointing at both Trak and Bahbi, “and fuck no for anyone else in here who wants to fight with us for freedom. We’re going to get the fuck out of these cages and get the fuck off this asteroid. Together.”

“Hmm,” Trak said, “so I guess you’re bluffing about killing Bahbi, then?”

Vi just stared at him.

Bahbi watched as Trak considered, then turned to look at him. “What do you think, kid? I’m looking at the possibilities and thinking it has to be both of us or neither of us. Do you feel like risking your ass—your life—for the highly unlikely possibility of tasting a little freedom?”

Bahbi’s entire reality had been shattered within the span of two days. His station, his place in his own universe drastically redefined, repeatedly. He didn’t have the luxury of time to consider who he was, who he was going to be, who he wanted to be, or what he was doing. But he lifted his eyes to first Trak, then Vi, and said, “Yes.”

Bahbi looked at Vi and said, hesitantly, “You’re…uh…you’re going to have to give me back my clothes.”

Trak and Vi had discussed the best course of action for a very long time before Vi had given the Garoxian a nod to release Bahbi, and Bahbi had automatically scrambled to the far side of the cage to stay out of his reach.

Qlu had three supply ships because he liked to obtain specialty items from three different space stations in this and nearby systems. Trak had explained that they usually rotated two ships out and one ship back, but the ship that had been scheduled to have already returned had experienced some drive problems and needed minor repairs. So, there were no supply ships on the asteroid at the moment, and the repaired one wouldn’t return for two or three days.

There’d been a heated discussion then, mostly between Vi, Trak, and Acken, about the merits of either taking the first available ship and risking drive issues or waiting for longer to secure one of the more reliable vessels. Either way, it meant everyone was going to have to stay in their cages for several more days. Vi hadn’t been on board with that, at all, since it came down to trusting Trak and Bahbi’s word that they would, indeed, facilitate the escape at some later point.

Looking suspiciously at Trak, she had muttered, “I have a hard time believing that Qlu would leave himself without transportation off this fucking rock.”

“He hasn’t,” Trak had replied with exasperation, “he has a fully stocked ship in a private hangar bay that can only be reached through his quarters. His secure and heavily guarded quarters. We could probably bust through the Trallian guards using that or that or that ,” he gestured first at the Garoxian, then at the Estranian, then at the Ophidian, “but we still won’t make it past his biometric security if he’s locked inside the quarters.”

Vi had looked at Bahbi, then, but everything they had discussed so far had been news to him. He couldn’t back Trak up at all. He had shrugged and said, “I don’t know any of this.”

Vi had kept regarding him for a moment, then said, “Give me your promise that you will free us from these cages no matter what, even if it turns out your friend is lying about everything, and we have to figure out our own escape.” That’s when she had given the nod to the Garoxian, who released Bahbi.

After he had scrambled over to the far side of the cage, warily eying the Garoxian’s reach, he had looked at Vi and held her gaze. Then, without thinking he knelt in imitation of Acken, and said, “I promise that I will release all of you from these cages, even if I can do no more than that.” Did she really trust him more than she trusted Trak? He hesitated for a moment, then added, “Even if it means my death.”

Vi had continued to hold his gaze for another moment, green eyes blazing, then gave him a small nod, and he stood.

Acken blew out a frustrated breath and yelled, “Surely you jest! You are going to trust these scurrying vermin and their honor to let us out of these cages? You are going to take them at their word?” He grasped the bars in front of him and let his head hang down. “Little she-beast, you really are too na?ve.”

Vi swung around to glare at him and shouted, “I’m giving them the same benefit of the doubt that I’m giving you, asshole! Why should I give them less trust than I’m giving you?”

“Because,” Acken said, raising his gaze tiredly, “they know nothing of honor. They willingly enter into slavery and do their masters’ bidding. You need to get us out of these cages now. There will not be another chance.”

“For what, so we can sit cross-legged in an empty hangar and sing “Kumbaya” for three days while Qlu throws everything he’s got at us?”

Acken just glared.

Vi turned back to Bahbi and regarded him, then said to Acken while holding Bahbi’s gaze, “I don’t see any reason to believe that they wouldn’t want their freedom as much as we want our own. I don’t think anyone has given them the chance to even consider the option before. And I want to give them that chance.”

Bahbi closed his eyes and said the only thing that felt right in that moment, “Thank you.” Trak snorted.

Now, she was looking at him with a decidedly unfriendly expression. She screwed up her face and pointed at him, “Unless you can adjust the temperature controls, you’re going to bring me something to wear or a blanket each time you come on watch. Even if it’s your own coverall. I’ll fucking die from hypothermia if you don’t.”

Bahbi nodded, “I will.”

“And I’m going to keep this on until your watch is over.”

Bahbi was in the middle of nodding again when he stopped and said, “But, we’re going to have to get that blood off of you before day watch. I was ordered to do it. Alved thought I should just spray you with the hose,” he pointed over to the utility area, “and I don’t think there’s any warm water. If we don’t get that off of you tonight, the day watch will just spray you down with freezing water when they come on. If we clean you off now, you can put the clothes back on and warm up again.”

Vi sighed and said, “All right, let’s go get the water and a rag.”

Bahbi had never been in such close proximity to an unrelated female before. In fact, he had only ever been in any proximity to three females: his mother, the female from his litter, and the female from the litter he had tended.

He snaked his arm around the front of the cage to use the scanner pad and released both of them from the enclosure, then walked with Vi over to the utility area and watched her peel off his coverall. Although he had never worn clothing on Trallia and was still getting used to the way the coverall restricted his movements and rubbed him the wrong way in many parts of his body, standing here with the naked female was the first time that he had ever, in his life, also felt naked. It felt strangely intimate, and that made him simultaneously feel hot and excited in the pit of his belly, but also clumsy and awkward. He could hear Trak speaking with Acken some distance behind them, but he couldn’t take his awareness away from Vi and their mutual nakedness. She was only three hands breadths away.

Bahbi knocked over the stack of rags reaching for one, then cracked his head on the basin when he went to pick them up, his hands shaking. Vi just watched him. He ran the water to wet the rag, wrung it out, then made to hand it to Vi, ignoring his ringing skull. He thought better of the wet rag at the last moment and pressed it against his body to warm up the cold water. Then he handed it to Vi, who was still just staring at him.

She eventually took the rag and began to clean herself off, starting with her face, which had only a few spots of Ulu blood on it and those she missed entirely. She moved down to her neck and chest and Bahbi’s mouth went dry as he watched her clean the splatters of blood off her breasts. She handed him back the rag, and he thought for a moment that she wanted him to wash her. His eyes widened and he reached the rag toward her, stepping a little closer.

She shook her head and said, “No, I don’t need you to wash me, I need you to get the rag wet again.”

He felt strangely disappointed, but covered it by saying, “Uh, you missed some spots on your face.”

She regarded him for a moment, then stepped closer and leaned her head forward.

He swallowed hard, “You…you want me to…?”

“Since I can’t see where, yes.”

Bahbi reached his trembling hand out with the rag and very gently ran it over one of the spots of blood, before his eyes met her steady gaze.

She said in a low voice, “I’m not going to hurt you, Bahbi. There’s no reason to be afraid.”

He held her gaze and said, “I’m not afraid.” Then he moved his eyes to the next spot of blood on her face and focused his attention there, cleaning and continuing, “It’s just that I’ve never been this close to a female before.” He thought about it for a moment and said, “Except for when you were on the floor and knocked me onto my back.”

Vi laughed a little, “Yeah, sorry about that.”

“No need to apologize,” he said, while carefully daubing at the last spot of blood, “so far, this has been the most interesting and exciting day of my life.”

They stood in silence while Bahbi re-wet and re-warmed the rag, then Vi washed her belly, thighs, shins, and feet with the rag, before washing her forearms and hands off directly in the stream of icy water. He re-wet and re-warmed the rag again before asking, “Would you like me to wash your backside?” He was trembling a little less now.

Vi gave him a small smile, then suppressed it and said, in a cool voice, “Sure.” She turned her back to him, then reached her arm behind her head and pulled her shiny black hair forward, around her neck.

Bahbi had an up-close view of the delicate curve of her neck into her shoulders, the slight curve of her waist into her narrow hips, and the beautiful, rounded curves of her ass. She was made entirely of curving lines. It stopped his breath. He stood as close as he dared to her and began to run the rag over her back in long, slow strokes, caring nothing for whether there was blood covering those locations or not. Moving down to her ass, he became lightheaded, and it only got worse when he squatted to wash the backsides of her legs and could easily smell the scent of her sex. Bahbi was very nearly having an out-of-body experience and tried desperately to focus on the moment and complete the task, but his head swam. If he had ever been drunk before, he might have likened it to that feeling.

He stood up and turned slightly away, gripping the edge of the basin hard.

“Are you OK?” she asked, with serious concern.

“Fine,” he said, a little breathless and embarrassed.

Then she did something incredible. She reached out and touched him where he had slammed his head into the basin, gently running her hand over the fur there. “I think you hit your head pretty hard, there’s a knot here. You may have a concussion. Do you feel dizzy?”

“Yes,” he breathed, knowing full well that it was her that was making him dizzy, not the little bump on his head. She was so naked and just inches from him.

“Does this hurt?” she asked, sliding her hand across the fur over the knot.

“No,” he whispered. It did, but the wonder of it all, that this fierce and amazing female was stroking his head, made the pain irrelevant. Bahbi’s whole body thrummed from the feel of her touch. He was going to grab her and start nuzzling and licking her if she didn’t stop soon, that’s how possessed and utterly out-of-control he felt. His own people didn’t even lick or nuzzle each other; he had no idea where these feelings and urges were coming from.

He grabbed his coverall that she had set on one of the maintenance units and handed it out to her. “You better put this on and get warm again.”

She took it from him and stepped into it, using the garment’s magnetic fasteners to close the front up. Then they both turned back toward the silent cages to find almost every pair of eyes on them, wide with shock.

Vi cleared her throat and raised her voice, while her back straightened in defiance, “So…what’s the fucking problem, guys?”

A little while after Trak had to leave, so that he wasn’t missed in the bunkroom, Bahbi sat cross-legged and tail straight out in front of Vi’s cage. She stretched her legs straight out in his coverall and leaned into the cage bars, on the other side of which Mister Beastly sat and pressed his back into her for warmth.

She was saying, “I’m going to need you to help me learn what I need to know for this situation.”

“But I don’t really know anything useful about this place. I’ve only been here two days.”

“Then about the galaxy and the people in it.”

Bahbi snorted, “I only know what I’ve seen on Ogobian Broadcasting.”

“On TV, huh? Well, that’s a start. And you can tell me about Trallia and Trallian culture. That’s who makes up the whole guard here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, as far as I know. The bunk room has 50 bunks, but I don’t know if they’re all full, since I sleep during the day cycle.”

“And we’re going to have to try to get some extra rations for Mister Beastly. I don’t think he’s getting enough food.” She turned and looked at the Estranian, who was lying on his back on the cage floor, knees up. “What about you, Acken, are you getting enough food to keep your body ready to fight?”

“No,” he said without sitting up or moving at all.

“Right, so for Acken, too. Snake guy?”

A hiss came from the back of the cage, followed by, “III neeed warmth mooore than exxxtra foood.”

Bahbi jumped up and said, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

In the control room, he found the controls of the Ophidian’s heated pad and cranked them to maximum, then came back in carrying a satchel that matched the fabric of his coverall.

Speaking into the Ophidian’s cage, he said, “I’ve turned your pad up to high. Let me know if it gets too hot.” He watched as the giant snake’s head slithered forward and regarded him. It said nothing, so Bahbi said, “I’ll have to turn it back down when my shift is over, so warm up while you can.”

Then he stood between the second two cages in each row and said, “This is my food ration. Either or both of you can have it.” He looked from Acken to the Garoxian, then back.

Acken sat up and stared but made no other move. The Garoxian continued to press his back into Vi’s. Eventually, Vi spoke up.

“Give it to Acken. I gave Mister Beastly my dinner, and I’ll keep sharing with him.”

Bahbi nodded and walked over to Acken’s cage with the satchel extended. Acken stood and reached for the bag but didn’t pull it into the cage. He just stood and stared at Bahbi until Bahbi started to feel decidedly uncomfortable. He was about to walk away and resume his position beside Vi’s cage when the giant warrior spoke, a little hoarsely.

“You are giving me your own food ration. Truly? I regret the comparison of Trallians to vermin that I made earlier, please forgive me.” And with that he lowered his head and muttered, “I have acted and spoke wrongly, and I have been forced to apologize twice this day. It will require some heavy reconsideration of my character.”

Vi called from across the room, “Hey, buddy, don’t beat yourself up too badly. We’re all just getting to know each other. There are bound to be rough spots.”

While she was speaking, Bahbi walked back over to her cage and sat down.

She pushed her shiny black hair behind her ear and said, “So, tell me about Trallia.”