Besides, I’ve got our mating ceremony, and whatever other strange traditions Mekkra has up his sleeve, to worry about now.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The comfort the food offered before is absent as I eat my dinner. It fills my stomach but does little for the emotional whiplash that Mekkra gave me in the bath. Am I so fucked up from my time in space that any shred of kindness has me feral for a monster?
I lie in the giant bed, staring up into those dimmed red lights that signal nighttime on this ship, and let my mind cycle through all the things that might happen tomorrow. Some scare me, like the thought of being tied to an alien for all eternity. But some of those thoughts entice me, too. If the warlord could make me come by faucet alone, what will it feel like if I let him touch me outside of the blur of an aphrodisiac?
I hate that moisture slowly builds in my core at the thought of him, and I press my palm against my mound to stop the blood from rushing to my pussy.
It doesn’t work—and I know if I just lie here, I’ll need to find another release for myself. It’s like Mekkra has activated my long-dead sex drive, which makes this so much more complicated than it needs to be. I eye the hole inthe console to which Starcroft retreated after dinner, with no signs of life or even as much as a blinking light.
I can’t just stay here and masturbate until morning; I won’t let Mekkra have that kind of power over me.
So without my robot attendant, I decide to take in a little of that stale station air and walk... maybe even explore my new home.
I grab one of the sheer robes, throw it over my shoulders, and press the door lock. With a whoosh it opens, even though part of me thought it might be locked. Is it possible that Mekkra trusts me? Maybe there's just nowhere for me to go on a station floating in space.
The dim hall thrums with red light as if a bulb is about to burn out. I pad barefoot in the opposite direction of the kitchen, deeper into the station than I’ve been before. As I walk, the narrowness of the hall opens into yet another atrium full of living plant walls. Garnet alien flowers open and close, blooming as if they’re breathing.
While beautiful, they look dangerous, sentient even. Something instinctual, some long-lost part of my caveman brain, screamsDon’t touch!
For once in my life, I listen.
I walk past the flowers and into a half-open doorway. The metal sliding door looks much like the one to my room…that is, if someone had bashed it open so badly that it might never close again. I run my hand across the jagged bits of metal as I pass through, my fingertips tracing along the long drags of what look like claw marks.
This room is smaller and much colder than the space I was in before. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to this darker space, and I’ve got to rely on whatever light is streaming in from theother room. But as I blink, I can make out what looks like a crude monument.
A large sheet of steel has been plunged into the floor so that it stands straight up in the air in the center of the room. Alien writing looks crudely scratched into the metal. Unfortunately, I have no idea what it says, as the translator chip the Deenz installed in my brain only works with speech. It feels important, though, and I lean in closer, trying to see if I can parse what they might mean.
As I lean in, I catch the faintest glint of something out of the corner of my eye, and as if I’m in some kind of trance, I reach out to it.
Whatever lies there next to the crude monument pierces my skin, and I yelp before nursing my pricked finger between my lips. The ferric taste of blood fills my mouth, and I move to the side, letting more of the light from behind me reveal what just cut me.
Right next to me are the hulking bones of what looks like another Drefling. The quill-like spines across the skeleton’s back cut me with the lightest of touches—proving that the ones Mekkra possesses are as deadly as they look.
I stumble backwards, wanting space between me and the long-dead alien.
Who the hell is this? And why was his body just strewn here on the floor and left to rot?
I shouldn’t be here.
I keep backpedaling until I hit something in the middle of the room, and I can’t help it when the scream escapes my lips.
“Mae, clam down, it is only Starcroft.” The robot hums as he floats around to the front of me. He cocks his little digital face and frowns. “Are you injured?”
“You scared the shit out of me!” I grumble.
“You’ve soiled yourself?” the little bot, who takes things very literally, asks.
“Ugh, god no, it’s like a figure of speech—I’m fine.”
My uninjured hand is still clutched to my chest as I try to catch my breath.
“Well, I am glad you’re well…and clean.” He smirks. “But I must ask, what are you doing here?”
Here.
“What exactly is this? Who was that?” I point to the pile of bones.
