The alien with the frankly gorgeous cascade of blond hair speaks in a voice so deep I can hear it even with thundering bass rumbling through me.
“We came for you. There is no place in this universe we would not go to find you, pet. You are ours. And we intend to make sure you know it so well this never happens again. We have missed you.”
Nobody has ever spoken to me this way, not that I recall. It gives me a kind of a weird feeling. Good, but also quite scared. He is a very, very attractive creature. Hotter than any human I’ve ever seen. But what if this is how they get you?
If this is a bit, some way to sweep a human into some kind of alien manipulation, they are good at it. I’d love to believe I know anyone as appealing as this, a powerful alien with two powerful alien bros. I live in a shitty one-room apartment in a shitty building on the outskirts of the orbiting city. There are always men around there, just like there are men here. They look, they leer, they try to touch. The things I’ve had to do to keep them away from me often border on illegal, and sometimes veer aggressively into, well, very illegal things.
That’s the reality of life when you are poor. You either break the law, or you suffer. It’s not uncommon to do both at the sametime. That’s why I like being in the club and selling pills. As work goes, it feels almost proper.
I look around again at the three very tall aliens around me. The rest of the crowd still doesn’t seem to notice them. The music seems to be quieter than it was before, as if they reached out and turned it down for our little bubble.
“Stop spoiling her,” the tall alien with sharp, severe features, scales on his face, and short cropped dark hair says. “That’s what got us here in the first place. She knows she’s in trouble. She knows what she’s done.”
“You’d be surprised how little I know,” I say confidently. He doesn’t smile.
He looks down at me with a severe expression that sends a chill right through me all the way to my core—and to the welling heat between my thighs. He’s hot too, in a different way. In a ‘Daddy’s going to fuck me up’ sort of way.
“When I get my hands on you in private, pet, you are going to pay for every single day of the three years you’ve managed to escape us,” he lectures me. “I warned you long ago what I would do, and once we are clear of this fetid human mass, you are…”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I don’t know who or what you are,” I interrupt, annoyed. I don’t like his tone at all. He sounds pissed, and he has no damn reason to be.
The aliens look at one another.
“What if she doesn’t remember us?” the third alien says. He is broad and strong. Built like a bull, or something more mythological. His skin seems to have a reddish hue, but it is hard to tell if that’s accurate under the club lights. Nobody lookslike they really do here. We’re all a bit fake. If I am not entirely mistaken, he has tips of horns extending from his thick, wavy dark hair. It’s either the most alien face I’ve ever seen, or it’s an amazing mask. His face looks elongated, the way a bull’s might be. But when he speaks, his mouth emotes sort of like a person’s, but bigger. He has lots of big, flat teeth in his mouth. I stare at him, entirely enthralled by trying to work out what’s going on with him.
“Go easy on her, Sharp,” he says. “She’s only human.”
“She’s pretending,” Sharp hisses back. “This is what she’s like. Breaking the rules, then pretending not to know better. She’s spoiled, just like she’s always been.” His brilliant green eyes flash, vertical pupils expanding when he looks at me, then contracting when he looks at the others and the lights of the club flash at him. He has slick dark hair flowing backwards from his scaled forehead in a widow’s peak. His brows are two vicious slashes angling over his gaze that is fixed on me, and when he speaks, his tongue flickers and I think I see it long and forked. My god. I am terrified and turned on all at once.
“She looks confused to me,” the Minotaur says. That’s what they’re called! Minotaurs. Humans had myths about these things long before they had floating cities, or planes for that matter.
“We’re not here to argue,” the blond says. “We’re here to reclaim our pet.”
I am still looking at the one called Sharp. He is still looking at me.
I don’t like him at all. Or maybe I do. I’m having some kind of visceral reaction to him. His words are rough and his eyes arethe kind of piercing that make me feel guilty even though I didn’t do anything wrong. They’re the ones doing something wrong. They shouldn’t be here.
The third alien, the red-skinned, horned one, is not looking at me. He’s scanning the club for danger. I should have been doing that in the first place to avoid this altercation. I’m still not sure what is happening, but I am pretty sure it’s bad news for me. As entranced and interested as I am, I know I need to get away from them.
I’m stuck in two completely different worlds right now. In one, three aliens are telling me I belong to them. In another, I am becoming aware that if security spots them, they’re going to spot me too, definitely. And once that happens, I’m going to get fucking banned from Zeal. And oncethathappens, I’ll have to find some way to survive in Sudo space, which is as boring as it gets. I’ll have to get a shuttle to the little satellite they run, the one that has nothing but low-slung office buildings. Everyone in Sudo space works as a vibe coder. Everybody wears a beige uniform. Everybody eats Sudo rations. It’s basically prison, with extra steps. But it’s better than falling to your death, I guess.
Practicality wins out over curiosity.
“I can’t hang right now, guys,” I say, using the same line on them that I’d use on any men who weren’t buyers and who were drawing way too much attention.
I know that the whole crowd is being scanned constantly by artificial surveillance. You really have to work to act within the bounds of acceptable normality if you don’t want security alerted. The actual people in the crowd might not be noticing these creatures somehow, but the security bots will, and once they start investigating, we are all fucked.
The Minotaur turns to the others, coming to the same conclusion I already had. They understand how this place works, so it seems. They’re under cover, just like me.
“We need to get her out of here,” he says. “I don’t like this place. Far too much security.”
They press in against me, closing the distance completely. I feel one alien hand against the back of my neck—that’s the blond alien. There’s another on my lower back. That’s the Minotaur. Another one loops lightly around my throat. That’s Sharp, and he looks like he really fucking means the grip.
“Oh, my fucking god,” I gasp.
Their combined touch ignites something in me. A memory, maybe? Or something more primal. A need. I am suddenly so fucking horny I can barely handle it. I can feel wetness between my legs, a literal slickness in response to waves of desire coursing through me uncontrollably.
“You thought you’d run away from us and we wouldn’t find you?” A voice is deep in my ear, resonating with the very marrow of my bones. Holy shit. I feel like hot liquid is running down my spine, circling through my belly, activating my clit.
