Taken and Mated Page 10

  Frost was clinging to her eyelashes. In the back of her throat, the air was getting sticky and crystallized, scratching as it brushed against her flesh.

  She was going to freeze to death.

  “Oh, no,” she mumbled quietly, not even sure what she meant by that. The door refused to open.

  She stared into the porthole, shivering, feeling herself begin to slide to the floor.

  The sound alerted to her to his presence. A growl, not like the growl of a Pratean, more like that of a yahthlal, the big, black mountain lions that prowled her homeland.

  She turned her head to the sound, shaking so much already from the cold that no fear could rattle her, or even pierce the dullness that had begun to claim her body.

  Her heart, ordinarily, might have stopped from sheer shock. The humanoid in front of her towered to staggering height, full feet above her, and his skin was oily black in the red light, crisscrossed by what looked like elaborate tattoos in a lighter shade. His face was beautiful, wild, and cruel. Muscles rolled beneath the patterning of his skin or tattoos and flexed with power. His body was so warm next to hers that she could feel the heat through the distance. And his eyes were very definitely, very clearly trained on hers. He held a weapon in one hand, and this too was pointed right at her heart.

  This alien, whatever he was, could see as well as she could in the red light.

  He said something in his language, his voice a low and deep growl. She shook her head, and then brought her fingers to her forehead, to make the sign of incomprehension that was recognized in most worlds. Or so she had been told; she had no idea how she remembered this piece of information, and her head felt thicker with every passing second. Her feet were frozen and numb, the cold creeping up her limbs to her core.

  She stopped shivering, practically at that moment, and she could feel herself being taken away by the cold.

  Her blood was slowing, her heart was giving up. She could feel almost nothing, except a desire to sleep.

  Almost as though she were dreaming, she put her hand out to the alien’s arm, and the muscle moved beneath his flesh. He was so hot he almost felt scorching. She looked at him, and he looked back very seriously at her, saying something quietly.

  “I’m cold,” she creaked. But the words caught in the sticky iciness of her throat, and it sounded like the croak of a frog. How funny, she thought.

  She leaned into him, and he pulled her close to his body, and then she was being lifted up, warmth enveloping her, creeping into her body and sinking down to her bones. She began to shiver again, but she felt like she was being pulled from a dark hole.

  Her eyelids went heavy again.

  And then everything, for the second time, went black.

  Chapter Nine

  She woke up without opening her eyes. It was a trick of survival that she had somehow honed; think first, breathe slowly, listen, and only when you know what you’re walking into, open your eyes.

  First, she was warm. Perhaps even uncomfortably so. Something was draped over her, perhaps something heavy, and her skin was in contact with something hard and cooler than whatever covered her.

  She was not in pain.

  She stirred ever so slightly, as she might have done reacting to a dream, and felt something heavy on her ankles and wrists.

  She allowed herself a glimpse through her eyelashes.

  It was dimly lit, the predominant color coming to her a dark brown.

  She closed her eyes again. There was an odd scent in the air, like back home when lightning storms streaked across the sky.

  She waited for sound, but nothing reached her except for the low, constant drone she recognized as the workings of a ship.

  She opened her eyes.

  Brown came from whatever was draped over her, which she shifted as little as possible in order to move it away from her face. Dark walls, striped in some way, came into focus.

  She sat up. Or tried to. Her wrists were caught midway in the action, and her ankles were the same; something tugged at them and she had to twist awkwardly to position herself on her hip, her hands on the floor, and her body twisted to allow her to look up and around.

  A cell. An actual cell, not like the one she had been confined to by her previous captors, but rather, a dank cell for prisoners. No windows, barely any light. She could make out other cells around her, but the light was dim and she couldn’t see if any were occupied. She looked up and around, finding nothing but the darkness of the walls and the confines of her low-ceilinged cage.

  She pulled on the restraints that bound her, and they rattled primitively. Gone were the high-tech restraints her trainers used.

  She felt tears welling up in her eyes.

  Whatever this was, it was decidedly worse than her last place of entrapment.

  With a shudder, she remembered the warrior—whatever he was—who had let her collapse into his very strong, very warm arms. What was he?

  She racked her mind for a similar encounter, or even a myth about a creature that met that description, but none came immediately to mind. He was not Pratean. He was not wearing an Imperial uniform.

  Where were the others? What about Commander Golan and Anasi? What would become of her?

  She had little time to wonder, though, because a door hissed open, and a humanoid of the same fierce appearance as the one who had carried her out of the cold appeared in a rectangle of light.

  He walked with heavy steps to her cage, and Lana stared up at him. She was pulling against the restraints, as if a consistent pressure would suddenly relieve them. It was only as she looked up at the terrifyingly muscled figure that she realized that the latest, largest plug was still inside of her, and that this giant—or at least the one who had brought her here—might even know that. And if he did, then he would know that she was a slave, a sex slave no less.

  “Wh-what what, wh-what... what are going to do with me?” Lana asked, trying to sound brave but aware that she was failing miserably.

  His skin was dark black, with red lines that extended like the branches of trees radiating from some point at the center of his torso out toward his extremities. His face and head were strangely identical in features to humans. He was even, Lana thought for a moment, quite good-looking, his eyes amber-colored and watchful, even sensual.

  The muscles beneath his skin flexed, and his chest rose and fell.

  Lana’s heart sank, as the man crouched, with agility, bouncing slightly on his heels while holding his weapon on the floor, the nonaggressive end of it, Lana supposed, to the ceiling.

  He stared at her, turning his head to the side, but Lana had no idea if that spelled curiosity in this alien’s body language, or something far more terrifying.

  Hunger? Lana felt panic rising in her throat.

  The alien stood, and she peered up at him, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

  “You have been trained by the Imperial Realm to mate with a Galleon prince.”

  Lana stared at him. The intonation of his voice was impossible to decipher, and his accent was strong. Did he mean this as a question, or a statement? Was she meant to answer him?

  He continued to look at her, his eyes burning through hers.

  “I... uh... I...” Lana stammered. “I... yes...”

  Her voice trailed off. The alien stared at her with no discernible reaction to her stammering.

  “You are the Atrix Katalana Scott of Vipheon.”

  This intonation was equally unreadable—was he asking her? Or telling her? Lana’s lips quivered with uncertainty before she whispered and nodded, “Yes.”

  “In your training,” he said coolly, “were you mated to any males of the Imperial Realm?”

  Lana stared back. She shook her head slowly, and her cheeks burned. The alien was becoming more menacing to her by the second, his muscles looking bigger, his coiled strength looming in front of her.

  “No,” she whispered.

  The alien registered no sign of comprehension, so she added quickl
y, “I was trained with... something else. Tools. I never...” Humiliation, however silly it seemed given her circumstances and everything that had happened for however long she had been captive, rushed over her. “I never... mated with ... th-th-them.”

  The alien’s amber eyes seemed to change, glinting for a moment before a liquid darkness took them over and made them seem black. Lana recoiled, her body edging away from the terrifying display.

  He stared at her for what seemed like a long time as her heart pounded and her terrified thoughts flew about in her mind like scraps of paper in a windstorm.

  The alien’s eyes turned to amber again, and just as abruptly, he turned. The dark door hissed open, and he left.

  Lana let out an exasperated sob, and then collapsed on the floor, covering herself with the blanket. She didn’t have any idea what would become of her, or who these new aliens were. She knew only that she was exhausted.

  * * *

  Lana had no idea how long she slept, and she couldn’t have guessed the amount of time if the prize for guessing correctly had been her freedom. Light poured through the door, across her face, and startled her awake. She struggled to sit up, remembering the bonds on her ankles and wrists only when they bit into her skin and deterred her from rising.

  The light was bright and took several moments to adjust to what was before her: not one, but two of the enormous aliens. They stood in silence, their strange eyes fixed on her form.

  Between her and the aliens, she noticed for the first time, was the source of the strange stripes she had noticed before: a virtual cage, the bars created by a distortion of matter where the forces of the bars was located. As she looked at them, they dissolved, and with their disappearance a strange hum that she had not noticed until its absence, disappeared.

  The restraints on her ankles and wrists dissolved at the same time, but it took her longer to notice the lack of pressure. She shifted her weight as soon as she did, and scooted backward, folding her knees up to her chin and staring back at the silent, unreadable guards.

  “Katalana Scott,” one of them said, after a lengthy pause. “You are to rise and follow us.”

  A tremor of fear coursed through her body. “Where?” she croaked. Her throat was dry from disuse, and she was aware, upon speaking, of an incredible thirst.

  The aliens exchanged glances. “You are to follow us.”

  Lana scooted further back, shaking her head and pulling her limbs closer to her body. She was calculating, as she did so, her chances of escape: she was small and quick, and reckoned that she could dart between the aliens’ legs and into the light behind them, if she made the move suddenly enough.

  But then, where to? She didn’t even know where she was.

  Her eyes moved quickly as she thought, her mind racing. While she had intended to escape from her last captivity, it seemed she had only landed herself in a worse nightmare. She felt a pang of longing for the familiarity of her previous bondage, the sense that she knew what to expect, even the liquid contentment that she had begun to feel for her submission. Where was she now? Who would care for her?

  Her eyes watered briefly.

  And then, much as she had done when the crash, or whatever it had been, took place, she made a quick decision, and sprang forward, headed in the direction of the ragged triangle of light between the guards’ bodies.

  It all happened very quickly; it almost seemed as if they moved apart for her to pass. She felt the heat of their muscular legs as she scrambled between them, her focus on the brightness outside the walls of her cell, her mind on only one thing: escape.

  Nothing stopped her as she crossed the threshold of the door. She was moving fast now, but it was bright outside the confines of the cell, and her eyes squinted involuntarily. She flung her hands out to feel for something, anything: a wall, the floor, something.

  Her flight was short. Her next step, only seconds, or perhaps just a full second later, her forward foot plunged into nothingness. Her eyes adjusted almost at the same time and took in the picture before her: she was outdoors, on a planet. Jagged rocks, trees, red foliage, a hazy sky. Her body was moving forward, but there was nothing beneath her feet. Her back foot, at the same time, lost its contact with the ground. Her stomach reported to her before her eyes took in the shifting scene before her, the downward smear of the rocks and trees; she was falling.

  A scream began to leave her throat. It was mangled, dry, and horrified.

  A dull, heavy object made contact against her chest. A flash of black and red, and the whole world spun again. Her back felt hot, the falling sensation was gone, her feet kicked at the air, and her scream was cut short by the pressure on her chest.

  She went limp. She was pressed against the hot, smooth skin of one of the guards; the force holding her was a black and red arm, crushing her to his chest. Her head fell forward and her eyes looked down.

  A sheer cliff of slate-colored rock plunged down, hundreds of feet, to a gash of vegetation, mostly red. Nausea gripped her chest, and she was sure she was going to faint.

  The view of the depths slowly shifted out of sight, and her feet felt cool rock beneath them as they slowly lowered to the ground.

  Without saying a word, the alien who was not gripping her moved in front of her, his bare back of muscle close to her face. The alien gripping her, who had saved her from the fall, left an arm around her, and his body remained at her back.

  With no choice as their muscled bodies began to edge forward on the rock, Lana moved with them, her legs trembling, her throat closed in fear. She was shaking, but enclosed in the hot, hard strength of the two aliens, she knew she would not fall, and so she abandoned her struggle and walked meekly with them, her eyes closed, her cheek against the alien in front of her, his heart pounding slowly and steadily. She could see only glimpses of the ground beneath her, and the sensation of descent traveled to her feet from the ground. But nestled between the two aliens, who she had only moments ago attempted to flee from, she felt a strange calm coming over her, and her will to resist ebbed away.

  They walked a short distance, while around her the sounds changed—noises, like those of a rowdy, human encampment, came to her from behind the wall of muscle, and the air became warm and humid. The sounds died away, and a shadow blocked the light from above.

  The warm bodies cradling her moved away, leaving her unsteady on her feet, alone. She blinked, adjusting to the new light.

  She was inside a building of some kind, but that was all she could have said about what kind of structure it was. The aliens stood on either side of her, their arms within a hair’s width of her own skin, so she didn’t dare to turn around. The reality of the crazed attempt she had just made began to fill her mind again, and her heart fluttered with the memory of fear while her eyes struggled to comprehend what she was seeing before her.

  It was a sizeable room that looked like sleeping quarters; a large piece of furniture resembling a bed, covered in sumptuous fabrics and furs, took up most of the space. Plants, unlike any she had ever seen, with flowers of unimaginable colors and sizes, lined a high, rounded window with light streaming through it.

  She stood, waiting for the aliens who had brought her there to give her an indication of what she should do, or a command, or a light push into the room. But nothing happened for such a long time that she finally decided to turn to the alien at her left, who had saved her from her fall. She looked at him imploringly, though she imagined he might not recognize the expression.

  “Wh-what is this?” she asked finally. She was whispering.

  “You are to remain here in these... temporary rooms... until the mating ceremonies begin,” the alien said woodenly.

  “The... what?”

  But the aliens were retreating, moving behind her. She turned as they withdrew, backing into a corridor through an arched doorway that seemed to be made a smooth, rounded stone. Beyond them, elaborate arched hallways with windows high on the walls, like the window in her ‘quarters,’ seemed
to honeycomb into infinity, plants and flowers weeping from their bright, open eyes.

  It was quite pretty, an erratic thought whispered in her mind.

  And then, as though none of it had ever been there, the doorway disappeared, and in its place was a darker stone, which seemed perfectly melded to the stone next to it.

  A puff of air escaped her lips, and then she reached for the stone. It was cool and stone-like for a moment, before it began to deliver a terrible sensation to her hand, like electricity. The feeling intensified until she drew her hand away sharply in discomfort.

  “What the! Damned door!” she swore quietly.

  She stared at her blocked passageway to freedom, frustration building in her chest, for several minutes. Tears threatened to well up in her eyes again, and she impatiently stuffed the feelings back down, before spinning on her heel to take in the new cell she had been placed in.

  As far as captivity went—and she felt a bit of an expert in the topic by now—this was the best place she’d landed since her kidnapping. A black and red robe of a silky material was spread on the bed, and she fingered the material for a moment before donning it. She sat on the edge of the bed, and then lay back on it, marveling at its luxuriousness.

  She sat up quickly and padded to the window. It was quite high, a few feet over her head. She looked around, and tried to move a small, decorative table toward it, but the object would not budge. She futilely tried to scramble up it to get a view of her new place of captivity but could not pull herself up.

  She gave up after a few minutes, and returned to the bed, where she sat down, put her head in her hands, and was just about to begin crying in frustration, when the door hissed.

  She froze, fear traveling up and down her spine, but a familiar voice reached her ears at the same time a smell—a delicious, irresistible smell—reached her nose.

  Food.

  She whipped her head to see Anasi, clad in an unusual garb, holding a plate of what was, unmistakably, even though it was oddly shaped and colored, food.