Chapter Three
The door hissed openagain, and Lana jumped to her feet, her fists clenched. A man entered the room, two guards flanking him, dressed in the dark scales of an Imperial Guard, but without the heavy armor. A multitude of symbols on his shoulder indicated that he was a high-ranking officer of some kind. His face was stern and rough, blue eyes glinting above a straight nose and a cruel smile.
“Lana,” he said, his voice neutral but somehow menacing. The guards stood back as the man walked forward toward her. “I have been told you are an undisciplined and unruly girl who invites punishment.” His lips quivered in a cold smile.
Lana stared at him, not knowing what to say. But she did not back down, as she probably should have.
“I am more than happy to comply,” the man told her, smiling and moving a step nearer to her. “I enjoy discipline. I especially enjoy disciplining girls like you who require a much firmer hand than usual.”
Lana’s stomach quivered and her limbs went cold, even as the words he was saying were somehow stoking the fire in her belly that throbbed right down through her body to between her legs.
“I will not be trained to be a whore,” Lana spat at him. She cursed herself silently for being overcome by her temper; what had happened to her plan to go along with things and gain their trust?
But this man was such a... who did he think he was, talking to her like that?
“No,” the man agreed. “But you will be trained to breed and to pleasure your breeder, for the best possible outcome of fertilization. And you will do it as a slave, because you are illegal, and you have no choice. And if you do not comply, you will be disciplined until you change your mind.”
Lana gritted her teeth. “I will not.”
“I assure you,” the man said, “that you will. You are not the first young lady that I have trained, and you are not the first unruly girl I have had to discipline strictly. You are not the first, even, to not realize that youwantdiscipline and submission. But you will come to this conclusion in time.”
“I willnot,” Lana seethed, though inside, she felt turmoil unlike any other she had felt in her life.
The man smiled. “Before I begin to discipline you, however, I consider it unfair that you do not understand the consequences for your disobedience. As such, we will take a tour of our facilities and you will be given the rules of your conduct and our expectations of you, as well as a small taste of the punishment that awaits you should you break those rules.”
Lana glared at him as though she knew something he didn’t and couldn’t be bothered to take his ‘tour,’ but inside, her heart was sinking. What did she think she would do? Her magnetic restraints were impossible to remove, and they seemed to attach to anything the guards desired them to, to contort her into any helpless position they saw fit. She was surrounded by dozens—if not hundreds—of oversized guards.
And she didn’t even know where in the galaxy she was.
But the idea of submission to these pigs burned inside of her like a hot coal.
She remembered suddenly what the doctor had said, and, though it was a shot in the dark, she took it. She was an ‘Atrix,’ whatever that was, and therefore she was special.
“You can’t hurt me,” she shot at the man. “I am an Atrix.”
The man’s face lit up, almost as if she had given him a gift. His smile was unnerving, and he cocked his head, amused. “My, aren’t we clever? That you are, Katalana Scott. And so it is, I cannot actuallyhurtyou... That is to say, break your precious skin or harm your body in any way that ispermanent.”
