I’m practically estranged from my mother, but I was in Louisiana on a rare visit to her and my sister when I was taken.
Amelia.
Ah, it all makes sense now. I bet the Grivath took me by mistake. One more thing to blame my sister for.
I can no longer ignore the roars of the crowd, and even my ability to mentally go elsewhere fails as one of the purple aliens grins, pleased. He’s obviously the winner, and I’m pushed along until I reach Nevada and the other women.
Two more women are sold into our group. One of them trips, falling to her knees as she sobs too hard to watch where she’s going. A purple alien immediately kicks her, and we all hear a crack as his foot hits her ribs.
One of his friends snaps at him, dragging the woman to her feet and pushing her toward us.
“Are you okay?” I murmur, and she simply shakes her head, bent over as she gasps for air.
There are still more women left on the stage, but the assholes who bought our group gesture for us to move.
We all ignore them until one of them reaches for a weapon similar to the one that the Grivath used on the screaming woman on the ship.
Just like that, we’re all moving, none of us wanting to experience the complete incapacitation that comes from a shock like that.
I study the aliens as we’re marched back toward where we came from. It’s some kind of dock, with a row of ships parked next to the one the Grivath used.
The aliens are a pale purple color, with curved horns that remind me of goats. They’re vicious, quick to hit and kick if we don’t move quickly enough. The alien behind me gets impatient when I hesitate and jolts me with the weapon in his hand.
I shriek, pain hitting my entire body, but the weapon is obviously not as bad as the one the Grivath used because I manage to stay on my feet, terrified of falling to the ground where I’d be even more vulnerable.
Finally, we stop, and the aliens gesture for us to climb the stairs to their ship.
We all glance at each other as we take in our new ride. It looks like a rust bucket. If it were a car, it certainly wouldn’t be roadworthy.
“Move!” one of the aliens screams at us, waving his weapon threateningly, and we all jump into motion, climbing the stairs.
It can’t have been an hour since we were brought here, and we’ve already been sold. Terror hits me, and my knees are shaking almost too badly for me to walk up the stairs.
Our lives will never be the same.
Terex
Rakiz eyes me over the fire, and I stare back. My king respects strength and quickly grows tired of those who scrape and kneel.
Today, though, his mood is dark.
“One of our mishua was taken last night. From right under our noses. The Voildi are becoming bolder.”
I grit my teeth. The Voildi have been a problem for centuries. If we had the forces, we could kill them all, making this planet a safer place for everyone.
Unfortunately, unlike us, they do not suffer from a shortage of females. They continue to breed and breed, and now they come to our territory and dare to take a mishua?
“They must be taught a lesson,” I say.
Rakiz shifts, finally gesturing to a servant, who offers me a drink. I reach out for the offered cup, enjoying the burn as the cool noptri removes some of the tension from my shoulders.
I wait for Rakiz to speak. This is where we usually disagree. I may be in charge of our forces, but I am a warrior first. His attempts to keep me from hunting have long caused tension between us.
Ultimately, I will obey my king’s orders for the good of our tribe. But I don’t have to like them.
Rakiz narrows his eyes as if reading my mind, and I raise an eyebrow, shifting my weight. After a long day of training with my men, I would prefer to find a willing female to tumble beneath me and then sleep the night away. I frown. Recently, the tumble has not been worth the inevitable tears and tantrums that follow when the female in question realizes that I do not have any plans to take a mate.
Perhaps just a hot meal and a good sleep, then.
“Send Deraz and Asroz,” he says.
I grit my teeth. “Respectfully, the Voildi must feel that they have enough numbers to take anyone we send if they are brave enough to come so far into our territory. Deraz and Asroz will need help. They are not yet seasoned enough to take down an entire pack of Voildi.”
Rakiz stares at me. “And I suppose they need my most experienced warrior to go with them.”
“Actually—”
“Enough.”
I grind my teeth, heeding Rakiz’s warning tone. But my eyes likely show my displeasure because he finally sighs.
“With our forces in the North, we are coming perilously close to having too few warriors here to protect the tribe from attack. You have three days to remove this pack of Voildi from the face of this planet.”
I nod. The Voildi stink, and they are terrible at concealing their tracks. Three days is longer than I had expected.
“Thank you,” I say, getting up to leave.
Rakiz sighs. “Be careful.”
I nod again and exit his tashiv, inhaling the brisk air. Winter is finally making way for warmer weather, but the nights are still cold, and I shrug my cloak over my shoulders, taking a moment to finger the long cut in the material.
“That needs to be repaired,” a voice says, and I turn.
Learza smiles at me.
“I must leave tomorrow on a hunt,” I say, and her face falls. “I will have it fixed when I return.”
She nods, her eyes meeting mine. “I would be happy to stay with you tonight,” she says boldly.
I eye her. I tumbled Learza many years ago. I would never tell her, but it was a mistake. I had assumed it was two friends releasing some tension. She thought it was a guarantee that she would be the last female in my bed.
With so few females available, they have many warriors to choose from. However, many of them wish for a life closer to the throne.
Rakiz has no heir and no brothers, which means that I remain next in line should he fall. But I will lay down my own life before I allow that to happen. I have never met a better, more just ruler than our king.
I am already forced to spend too much time close to our camp and not enough time hunting and fighting. I would wither away if I were forced to make decisions over others’ lives and prevented from hunting the Voildi.
“Thank you,” I say. “But I must rest before we leave at dawn.”
Ellie
New ship, new cage. These aliens don’t seem to care if we talk, and they’ve left us alone after dumping us in a cage even smaller than the one on the last ship.
A woman is currently pacing back and forth in front of the locked cage door. Other than me, she’s the shortest woman here, but where I’m curvy and plump, she’s tiny and petite, so I’ve mentally nicknamed her Tinker Bell.
“We have to get out of here,” she hisses, and Nevada nods her head.
“How though? Those bastards have the keys.”
“What’s the end goal?” another voice speaks up, and I turn to the woman who was kicked in the ribs when she fell. Her face is still pale as she sits hunched over and leaning against the wall.
“What do you mean?” Nevada asks.
“Well, say we get out of here. You think we can kill those aliens and take this ship? Any of you guys flown a spaceship before?”