The ogg blinked. His mouth hung agape in confusion.
“You know, the Sewar? Ungodly amount of tentacles?” She gestured to his unfortunate throne. “You probably butchered them and stole this, but they use it when giving birth and to keep the eggs warmed beneath them. They’re passed down through generations.”
The horde leader spluttered and snorted before making a gesture with his meaty fists that was plainly a command. “Give to horde tomorrow when war party returns,” the ogg said to the others. “Soon she no laugh.”
She was hoisted up and dragged back into the cold.
Vessa’s predicament wasn’t ideal.
Her arms were stretched overhead with the wrist cuffs stuck to a bresanium anchor they had fitted to a pole. Five other identical poles filled the tent. The floor around each was stained with various kinds and shades of blood. The space as a whole held that specific odor of fear and death.
A torture tent of doom, then.
She was forced to stand on her tiptoes because when Gor Lug hung her up, he’d lifted her to do it. Her shoulders felt like they were being wrenched from their sockets, and her hips screamed like they were trying to be free of her legs. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Though she’d fought the moment they pulled her out of the ogg’s tent, killing at least one with a couple well-aimed kicks, they’d managed to put another set of maglocks around her ankles.
She was well and truly fucked.
With every passing minute, her chances of being able to escape and fight her way out dwindled. Pits, by the time they came for her, she could be dead from hypothermia. There was no great heater in this tent like in the ogg’s, and though the fabric was thick and sturdy, it did little to keep the cold at bay. Damn her Seken weakness. Her people weren’t made for frigid weather. She wasn’t certainanyonewas made for this climate besides the Orcru. It wasn’t cold, it wasdeadly.
Find the ship on the uninhabited planet. Get the valuable items from its safe. Quick and easy, they’d said. Back in no time.
So much for that.
Hours felt like a small eternity as each second that passed became a greater agony. She couldn’t be certain she still had all her toes because she couldn’tfeelthem. Were they going to leave her in here to freeze to death?
Just then, as if she had summoned something from the Pits, the weighted tent flap drew back. She shivered against the biting wind that was let in. The singular helo-lamp wasn’t bright enough to light the entry. Two pinprick eyes shone at the dark threshold, and if she were a weaker woman, it would be a terrifying vision.
“Don’t let all the cold in,” she reprimanded.
The Orcru stepped inside, his form filling the entrance. Gor Lug. In one hand he held a crude dagger, and in the other a worn leather sack.
She sighed. This didn’t bode well. “Didn’t we spend enough time together? I was really hoping I’d never have to see your hideous face again. Orsmellyou.”
“Ogg Braqq says you prize for horde,” he said as he approached her slowly. His gaze shifted between her and the entrance as his face contorted. “But Gor Lug the Vicious find. And if I want, I take.”
Oh,fuckno.
He sat the leather sack down at her feet. From her position, she couldn’t see what he was doing or what was held inside of the bag. Her mind flitted through possible scenarios. None were pleasant and almost all of them ended up with her dead.
A clicking sound came from below her, and before she could decipher what it was, her ankles came loose from their cuffs. Jolts of pain ricocheted through her body as she lost her balance.
Gor Lug stood up and snatched Vessa hard, wrenching her lower half toward him. While trying to save her abused shoulders, she brought her knee up hard and fast. It slammed into the underside of his meaty chin. The clack of his teeth echoed in the tent.
He pressed into her, pinning her to the pole with his weight. He lowered his lumpy face to hers. “Will stuff prize, split open,” he snarled through grunts. “Break in for clan.”
She turned her face away as spittle landed on her cheek and his rotten breath choked her. Vessa spit in his face in turn.
“Break in? I bet you can’t even see your dick when you sneeze.” She wasn’t sure how she was going to get out of this situation, but she knew one thing for certain: she wasn’t going to be touched by any of these foul creatures.
“What doing?”
Vessa jerked her head toward the entrance to find Bargo there, his face twisted with anger. She’d watched the domination games between these two play out like a bad soap opera.
“I find, I take,” Gor Lug asserted as he eyed her suit.
Thank gods she had spent an inordinate amount of money on this winter suit. It might do little against the cold here, but it was also some of the highest-grade light armor on the market.
