She had no choice, really. No option but to give in, to submit, as Rychor had stated it.
A sudden, terrifying force gripped her, and she was jumping off the table before she even had time to consider her options. Running—and with no one attempting to stop her—for her life, with no plan except escape.
CHAPTER4
As she scrambled along the slippery corridor, hand on the wall to steady herself, Sonya began to question what she’d just done.
There was no escape. The endless, winding corridors were a maze, and she didn’t have a map. From what she’d seen, the surface of the planet was a hellscape. Dusty, barren, and devoid of life. Even if she did manage to outrun Rychor and hide somewhere, she had no food, no idea if the water in the underground river system was drinkable, and no plan. She didn’t actually expect to find her flightsuit, did she? And how was she going to get out?
As her breathing turned heavy, she came to understand two things. She had made the wrong choice. It hadn’t been a choice, really. She’d fled on instinct. Terrified by whatever procedure she was being prepared for, her flight response had kicked in again. But this time, there was no hope. There was nowhere to run. No spaceship with a pilot waiting to spirit her away from this place.
The second realization was far more somber. Choice was notan option. She had none. Whether she liked it or not, whether she could stand it or not, she was stuck here. At the mercy of the whims of her stoic captor and his kind. Rychor would not ask nicely. He would not care about her reply.
She slowed as the weight of understanding settled over her. There really did seem to be only one path through this: submission. As she came to a stop, she doubled over, hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. She heard footsteps behind her—walking calmly, not running.
But why would he run? He knew as well as she did she had no chance of escape. The footsteps came to a stop, and she sensed his ominous presence.
As her heart and breathing slowed, she slowly stood up again. She turned around with her chin held high to face her fate.
Rychor stood in front of her with his arms folded across his chest.
She wondered why he hadn’t yet taken her over his knee again to administer another punishment for her misbehavior. Even as she thought of it, a mix of feeling flared inside her. The crack of his hand on her bottom, followed by the warmth of his hand, stirred both fear and a strange, warm feeling inside her. A vignette of being spanked, then soothed by Rychor as he propped her on his huge lap, wandered through her mind at lightning speed. She tried to rid herself of the queasy feelings, the dips of fear and the peaks of arousal that roiled inside her. Her lips parted, but her mouth was too dry to speak.
“I explained that you have nothing to fear,” Rychor said. “You will not be harmed. You will be cared for. It will not be distressing.”
“I am alreadydistressed!” Sonya wailed, suddenly very annoyed by his word choice. She waved her hands around. “This is fracking… distressing! As hell!”
Rychor looked back at her implacably.
“This segment of the process cannot be avoided. We apologize that it is distressing you. If you will return and give your consent, we will rapidly determine your sexual preferences, and they will be accommodated. We have already determined that you are submissive in nature and aroused by submission. I do not understand why you are behaving like this.”
Her mind filled with excuses to offer him. She quickly dismissed all of them. He would know. Her only hope of being spared another correction was sincere honesty and remorse. “I… I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I panicked.”
“You were left unrestrained, unlike the others, because I thought I had your trust,” he said.
The sentiment was oddly touching. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was screaming at herself to not fall for the oldest pitfall in the story of astrobiology: anthropomorphizing alien species. Humans had a tendency to impose human motives and desires on other lifeforms—terrestrial or non. Rychor was not beingkindto her, she reminded herself. He was trying to accomplish his own goals.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated, anyway. She knew what her own goal was, and that was to avoid a humiliating spanking on her already burning skin.
He nodded. “Your apology is accepted,” he said. “Nevertheless… it would be frowned on if I left you uncorrected for your behavior.”
His response struck her as strange. She had never heard him pause before. He seemed almost reluctant to mete out a correction. She nodded back at him and lowered her head. Best to get it over with sooner rather than later. She prepared herself for another spanking, her hands subconsciously moving to cover her bottom. She began to shake her head, then stopped when she realized what she was doing.
Fear and excitement fluttered like fighting birds in her chest.
The alien looked at her and seemed to be assessing something.
“I have something else in mind,” Rychor said.
She opened her eyes, which she had squeezed shut, and looked at him. He had already turned and was walking down the corridor. He seemed unconcerned whether or not she would follow. Like he knew he’d bested her. An anger flared inside her at his arrogance. At the fact he knew he owned her now. That she was his to do with as he pleased, without any restraints.
She quelled it. Anger would get her nowhere. She was an adaptable person, and she was concocting a new mission. To survive this and rejoin the orbital. To document this species and to warn whoever else might try to set foot on this planet.
She gave one final glance down the corridor, perhaps just to determine that indeed no salvation awaited her, and it did not. The end of that corridor was far away in the distance just like the direction Rychor had turned. She could run that way, but he would catch up to her in a few, casual strides.
Resigned, she fell into a quick step behind him. With the adrenaline mostly drained from her system, she once again felt a deep shame at her own nudity. She blushed at the prying glances of other passing Ryvokia. It felt a little stupid, but she was only human, she told herself. Shame was natural. Who wouldn’t be embarrassed being paraded naked down a corridor for everyone to see?
As they re-entered the small chamber behind him, she saw the three attendants patiently waiting by the examination table. She covered her breasts and sex, while knowing they would probably soon be intimately inspecting both.
