ALETTA
When Aletta woke, her first thought was that she really needed to pee. Her second thought was of Gark.
Then reality caught up, and she bit back a curse. She should be worried about Dylan, not the big, grumpy alien captain whom she’d only just met. Even if she felt like she’d known him forever, and he kissed like a god.
Well. He wasn’t here now because A’Kar had kidnapped her and dragged her to… Actually, where exactly was she?
She was lying on her side on the floor, that much she could tell. It was so cold she felt like she was in a walk-in freezer, but after spending almost a week on The Lady, she could attest that space was absolutely freezing. So, in space.
But the low humming that reminded her of a barely functioning air conditioner was unexpected. She opened her eyes slowly, blinking as she tried to see in the dimly lit room.
She was definitely on the floor. And it was definitely some kind of spaceship. Her wrists were tied together in front of her, and she moved her hands, trying to get some feeling back into them, as she surveyed the ship. Yes, definitely a spaceship. But a really shit one, she thought with a snort.
From where she was lying, she could see the entire thing. It was tiny. If she looked by her feet, she could see the outline of a cargo hold door, like the one on The Lady. If she tilted her head back and looked to the other end of the ship, she could see two huge seats in front of a bank of controls that flashed with lights. Above the controls was a viewscreen like that on The Lady. She could only see bits and pieces, but it looked like a map was currently on the screen.
An arm moved, pointing at the screen, and she realized the seats were occupied. She couldn’t quite hear what they were saying over the hum of the engine noise. There was a wire wall, like a cage, separating the space where Aletta was tied up from the front of the ship. Stacked along the sides of the space were crates and boxes. It looked like she’d been dumped to one side with the cargo.
She wriggled her fingers, the tingling pain of the blood moving back into the cold digits making her gasp. But she could move them, and the tape she’d been bound with was loosening. Just a little more and she’d be able to free her hands. She might take some skin off as well, but that was a small price to pay for even a little bit of freedom.
She couldn’t reach her feet unless she sat up, so she wriggled around and pushed herself onto all fours. From the new angle, she could see four more seats on the other side of the cage, two on each exterior wall facing each other. They were all full.
So there were six big, black-clad aliens to get past. She swallowed past a lump in her throat. That wasn’t good.
But Aletta wasn’t one to let a little thing like bad odds get in the way of her plans. She thought back, trying to work out who these people—aliens—were that had taken her.
The last thing she remembered was the tears on the woman’s face in the bar, as if she knew what was about to happen to Aletta. She sifted back through her memories. The bar, thehuman woman—the first human she’d seen since leaving Earth—and the slimy bottom-feeder A’Kar dragging her there.
And the surprise she’d felt as she’d been stabbed in the neck with a needle. She’d been drugged, and if they’d done it once, they could do it again. Her head hurt as if she’d been on a weeks-long bender. Who knew what they’d given her and if it had any long-term effects.
Well, first things first. No matter what else happened, she had to get out of here.
She wriggled to a sitting position and bent forward, using her hands to pull the tape off her ankles, when a pair of boots appeared in front of her—big, black, shit-kicking boots.
Aletta’s hands froze. She was caught. There was no point in denying it.
“Well, look what we have here.” The deep voice put her teeth on edge. A hand reached down to grip her chin in rough fingers, jerking her head to look up.
Aletta winced as a sharp pain speared her neck. She jerked her head away with a scowl.
He was huge, with thick arms corded with muscle and thighs like tree trunks. His blond hair was pulled back in some kind of topknot, and the sides of his head were shaved, revealing tattoos on his skull that disappeared into the collar of his shirt. He tilted his head to one side as he looked at her. He smiled slowly, revealing a missing front tooth.
“Keep fighting. I love it when they fight.”
He bent down and grabbed her by her upper arms, pulling her to her feet. Feet that were still bound together. The shuttle shuddered, and Aletta lost her balance, falling into him.
“Look at this, Jerrick!” He turned and called over his shoulder. “She wants it bad.” He chuckled, wrapping an arm around Aletta and lifting her easily off her feet.
She kicked her legs as much as she could, struggling against his hold. “Let me go!”
Another alien, even bigger than the one who had grabbed her, appeared. This one looked her over and snorted. “Put her down, Xerrick. You know the rules.”
Oh god. Jerrick and Xerrik. She’d been abducted by Alien hicks.
Xerrik’s arm tightened around her. “Fuck the rules! They’re useless by the time they make it to a brothel. No fight left in them.”
Brothel? Oh fuck.
She started fighting harder, catching Xerrik on the side of the knee with her heel. He grunted and dropped her to the floor, her legs crumpling under her. She barely managed to get her hands up in time to stop her head from hitting the edge of a crate. Something crunched loudly in her wrist, and a fiery pain radiated up her arm. She cradled her hands against her chest, curling into a ball on the floor.
