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This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
With her eyes clenched tightly, as they were at the moment, the sounds around her—screams of excitement and encouragement and disappointment—might almost have been the sounds of an ordinary ball game.
The only problem with that was that it was an illusion.
Or maybe adelusionfostered by the sheer terror that had gripped Eleanor from the moment she’d regained consciousness after capture?
By aliens.
Because when she opened her eyes she sawnothingbearing any resemblance toanyball game on Earth that she’d ever witnessed.
In the first place, the only ‘ball’ rolling around the field was the occasional decapitated head. The roars of approval from the spectators were certainly reminiscent of the reaction of crowds of sports fans to a field goal or homerun, but there all resemblance ended.
Well—the arena wasn’t a great deal different than a giant football stadium, but none of the ‘players’ seemed to be on the same team. They were swinging bludgeons and swords, not bats or rackets.
And they were the next thing to stark naked.
That fact might have spawned a little interest if her circumstances had been different. Because there was next to nothing left to her imagination. Alien or not, they were all humanoid, clearly of the male gender and heavily muscled—even the lean, wiry ones. And the ropey, knotted flesh was clearly an outward indication of amazing power and agility and skill honed to rock hard by efforts on this field rather than the puffed up beef that strolled out of gyms and wedged their over-inflated mass into sports cars.
These wererealmen—warriors!
Terrifyingly aggressive!
Well, not men per se. Males.
She’d yet to spot a single Earth man among them, but it wasn’t until she acknowledged that that her deepest fear boiled to the surface.
She was dangling here like bait because shewasbait!
Up until the moment that sank home, emerged from the deepest recesses of her consciousness as an indisputable truth, she hadn’t been able to get her mind off her fear and discomfort long enough to figure out thewhyof her predicament.
Maybe this was why she’d been snatched from a deep sleep in her own little bed in her own little apartment and hauled light-years away and maybe not. Maybe she’d only been collected as a useful thing and the decision ofhowto use her hadn’t occurred to her captors. Maybe she had merely been a trade good?
She didn’t know and it certainly didn’t matter, because goods and money had traded hands and the horrible thing that had examined every opening in her body with horrifying thoroughness had clearly had something in mind for her when he’d made the trade.
And then she’d been brought here and bound hand and food and hung up like a haunch of meat about to be smoked—except, thankfully, there was no sign of fire or smoke!
But the bindings and the weight of her own body went beyond mere discomfort. She was in pain as soon as they bound her. That increased tenfold when she was hauled up by her arms and left dangling some eight or ten feet above the ground, swaying slightly back and forth at the end of the rope they’d used to haul her up—like bait on the end of a fishing line.
They wouldn’t have brought her this far just to end up as food, though, would they?
She did her best to convince herself that wasn’t even a possibility, but, unfortunately, she couldn’t entirely dismiss it.
She wanted to—badly.
She thought the odds had to be astronomicallyagainstthat scenario—even though she’d been stripped naked and bound up like a Christmas turkey.
Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but it occurred to her as she watched first one and then another of the warriors flick hard, assessing glances in her direction that maybe she was supposed to be … like a prize? Winner gets this strange naked female?
She dismissed the thought, but it kept coming back. She didn’t know if there was any logic behind it or if it was just wishful thinking.
Not that shewishedfor what would come next!
But she thought it beat the hell out of her first conclusion—at least in theory.
