She pulled on the restraints that bound her, and they rattled primitively. Gone were the high-tech restraints her trainers used.
She felt tears welling up in her eyes.
Whatever this was, it was decidedlyworsethan her last place of entrapment.
With a shudder, she remembered the warrior—whatever he was—who had let her collapse into his very strong, very warm arms. What was he?
She racked her mind for a similar encounter, or even a myth about a creature that met that description, but none came immediately to mind. He was not Pratean. He was not wearing an Imperial uniform.
Where were the others? What about Commander Golan and Anasi? What would become of her?
She had little time to wonder, though, because a door hissed open, and a humanoid of the same fierce appearance as the one who had carried her out of the cold appeared in a rectangle of light.
He walked with heavy steps to her cage, and Lana stared up at him. She was pulling against the restraints, as if a consistent pressure would suddenly relieve them. It was only as she looked up at the terrifyingly muscled figure that she realized that the latest, largest plug was still inside of her, and that this giant—or at least the one who had brought her here—might even know that. And if he did, then he would know that she was a slave, a sex slave no less.
“Wh-what what, wh-what... what are going to do with me?” Lana asked, trying to sound brave but aware that she was failing miserably.
His skin was dark black, with red lines that extended like the branches of trees radiating from some point at the center of his torso out toward his extremities. His face and head were strangely identical in features to humans. He was even, Lana thought for a moment, quite good-looking, his eyes amber-colored and watchful, even sensual.
The muscles beneath his skin flexed, and his chest rose and fell.
Lana’s heart sank, as the man crouched, with agility, bouncing slightly on his heels while holding his weapon on the floor, the nonaggressive end of it, Lana supposed, to the ceiling.
He stared at her, turning his head to the side, but Lana had no idea if that spelled curiosity in this alien’s body language, or something far more terrifying.
Hunger? Lana felt panic rising in her throat.
The alien stood, and she peered up at him, her heart beating wildly in her chest.
“You have been trained by the Imperial Realm to mate with a Galleon prince.”
Lana stared at him. The intonation of his voice was impossible to decipher, and his accent was strong. Did he mean this as a question, or a statement? Was she meant to answer him?
He continued to look at her, his eyes burning through hers.
“I... uh... I...” Lana stammered. “I... yes...”
Her voice trailed off. The alien stared at her with no discernible reaction to her stammering.
“You are the Atrix Katalana Scott of Vipheon.”
This intonation was equally unreadable—was he asking her? Or telling her? Lana’s lips quivered with uncertainty before she whispered and nodded, “Yes.”
“In your training,” he said coolly, “were you mated to any males of the Imperial Realm?”
Lana stared back. She shook her head slowly, and her cheeks burned. The alien was becoming more menacing to her by the second, his muscles looking bigger, his coiled strength looming in front of her.
“No,” she whispered.
The alien registered no sign of comprehension, so she added quickly, “I was trained with... something else. Tools. I never...” Humiliation, however silly it seemed given her circumstances and everything that had happened for however long she had been captive, rushed over her. “I never... mated with ... th-th-them.”
The alien’s amber eyes seemed to change, glinting for a moment before a liquid darkness took them over and made them seem black. Lana recoiled, her body edging away from the terrifying display.
He stared at her for what seemed like a long time as her heart pounded and her terrified thoughts flew about in her mind like scraps of paper in a windstorm.
The alien’s eyes turned to amber again, and just as abruptly, he turned. The dark door hissed open, and he left.
Lana let out an exasperated sob, and then collapsed on the floor, covering herself with the blanket. She didn’t have any idea what would become of her, or who these new aliens were. She knew only that she was exhausted.
