Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance (11 page)

Lennai arched her back, groaning as she came, and Vega spasmed into a climax of his own inside her. Normally she would have made him withdraw and climax into his own hand, or anywhere that wasn’t into her, but this time she squirmed atop him, grinding her hips to his, and smiled as he jerked and released beneath her.

“I’m sorry, domina,” he said, as her hands fell from his and he let go of her, opening his eyes to look up at her.

She shook her head a little, sweat glistening on her brow, and brushed a few bits of her fiery red hair back from her face. “It’s all right. I wanted this for you. You fought well today.”

“Thank you.”

She sat atop him another moment, the meeting of their sex throbbing sorely between them, until finally she propped her hands on the mattress and lifted herself from him, spilling down off the bed. Vega ached anew, watching her, and then grabbed at the waistband of his trousers to tug them back up, but found that was all the strength he had left.

“Rest now,” she said, already heading for the door. “I’ll send the donara in the morning to see to your wounds.”

Vega said nothing to that, just watched her leave the room, and then let his head sag against the pillows. He closed his eyes, and of course even as he drifted off, he thought of Alaina, and in his dreams and passions he saw her again and again, and knew he was in serious trouble.

After the day at the Arena, the bathhouse in the Chara palace was bliss. As with the public baths, the room was one sprawling sauna filled with pools of steamy water. Some of them were scented with floral and perfumed water, some had petals and small orbs floating through them, releasing special oils for the skin. Alaina barely cared about being undressed by strangers this time, she was so eager to get into one of the pools.

When she finally climbed naked down into one of them, she relaxed to a seat on the bench in the water, and the steam and heat leeched so much of the exhaustion and ache from her bones that she almost fell asleep. But her thoughts kept turning back to Vega, which jolted her awake again as she tried to avoid actually having a straight-up sex dream about an alien in a bathtub on an alien space station.

Bad, Alaina. Very bad.

She tried to turn her thoughts away from the hot alien and toward finding a way off this station and back to Earth.

But all too soon, it seemed, a shadow spilled over her and someone cleared their throat softly, but with insistence.

Alaina opened her eyes and looked up, and the girl Nyssa stood above her, holding up a soft robe.

“Gurun asked me to fetch you,” Nyssa muttered, rolling her eyes a little. “It’s time you were dressed for the feast.”

“I thought you were just a cleaner,” Alaina said, a little more bite in her voice than perhaps she intended. But this bitch had tried to get her killed her first night here.

“I’m a slave,” Nyssa replied, curt. She opened the robe and looked at her expectantly. “I do as I am told.”

Alaina bit down on another mean remark and just shrugged, floating forward through the water, and then climbed up out of the pool. Nyssa threw the robe onto her shoulders and Alaina got her arms quickly into it, tugging it shut and tying at her waist. Nyssa was already walking away, towards the exit, and Alaina had to hurry to catch up to her. She led her out of the bathhouse and back into the slaves quarters, through the locked gate and to the little room that had become her home.

There were three other slaves waiting for them, as Alaina had expected.

Nyssa left then, and Alaina tried not to curl into herself as the dressing slaves quickly stripped her of the robe. She expected another translucent gown, and was unsurprised when she saw one of the slaves pull one from a panel close in the wall. Before she put it on Alaina, another slave held up a pair of...Alaina squinted at them.

“What the hell is that?” she blurted, staring.

“This is the
clostrata
,” an orange-scaled servant explained, arching her eyebrows. “It is the traditional undergarment of the donara.”

First of all, the thing looked like it was made of some kind of synthetic armor, not fabric. And it was more like a pair of shorts than a pair of panties. But perhaps most strikingly, there was a
lock
on it, like a belt, two pieces that criss-crossed in the front and then latched together.

“Domina Lennai holds the key,” the servant went on. “And will only give it to the cursu who wins the donara.”

One of the other servants added, “It is meant to assure that none of the other cursii can take you without the domina’s consent.”

Nevermind Alaina’s own consent, apparently.

It was a goddamn chastity belt.

“What if I have to pee?” she asked, folding her arms.

The servants descended into a fit of giggles, and the orange-scaled one shook her head a little. “It is tuned to your physical status,” she said. “It will only lock when your heart rate speeds up and your body becomes aroused. You will be able to perform all other bodily functions without trouble.”

She held out the garment and Alaina stood glaring at it for another moment before she snatched it from the slave’s hand. While they stood there tittering and snickering, she climbed into the thing, tugging it up to her hips. The orange-scaled one came over and delicately wrapped the locking mechanism around the curves of her hips and waist, then latched it into place. Alaina made a surprised noise as the thing turned itself on, humming a little as it hugged her figure and her skin, conforming until it was much more comfortable. But still Alaina had the sensation of being trapped in it.

The slaves fit the gauzy dress over her and she was aware that the
clostrata
was plainly visible beneath the dress, as she suspected was the point. To give the illusion of nudity but still remind the cursii that they had to earn what lay beneath the gown. Her breasts were prominently obvious through the soft fabric, and she was actually a little thankful for the modesty the
clostrata
afforded her. Any modesty at all was something in this place. Alaina felt like less of a person, but she told herself that was what they were trying to do and she fought to keep a sense of self —of freedom, of independence— in her heart. She wondered if the cursii felt this way as their slaves fitted them with armor before the games. She wondered if Vega felt this way.

She really needed to stop wondering about Vega.

One she was in the dress, they sat her at a tiny vanity in the room’s corner and powdered her all over with a kind of make-up dust. It made her skin shiny. And then they arranged her hair in a complicated series of knots and braids and curls, letting it spill down her back but keeping it out of her face. The cursii were meant to see her face, to have it in their minds, to be able to properly picture claiming her as a prize.

One of the slaves tapped at the wall and a panel flickered to life, turning into a mirror to show Alaina her reflection. And she had to admit, she looked beautiful. The dress, even so see-through, enhanced her curves and her skin was basically glowing, the pale twists of her hair illuminated by that powder as well. Alaina had never really thought of herself as beautiful. She wasn’t vain. She was good-looking, she figured, but now she was struck by how little of herself she saw in this reflection. It was at once shocking and disheartening and strange, to know she was looking at herself yet having trouble finding anything familiar. Perhaps it killed some of the freedom in her heart.

Once she was dressed, Gurun arrived to escort her down to the barracks.

He wore a device holstered at his hip that Alaina had at first thought was some kind of taser. But when they got to the barracks gate, he used it to open the door. A master key, Alaina thought. Of course the head slave in the house would have a key to open all doors, and the other slaves like Nyssa only had keys to open the doors they needed to go through to perform their duties. Gurun wouldn’t even really look at Alaina, so she was free to try and figure out how the device worked. She knew she was going to have to steal it.

“You will be in a seat of honor,” Gurun was saying as they walked down the corridor from the stairs. Alaina could already hear the revelry ahead of them. “Where you will stay until I come to fetch you.”

“And how long will that be?” she asked.

Gurun scowled. “As long as I say it is. You just sit in your place where the cursii can see you, and under no circumstances are you to participate. I trust that you were fitted with the
clostrata
.”

“Yeah, if you ever looked at me, you’d be able to see it because this dress is basically air,” Alaina muttered.

Gurun did look at her then, sharply. “Watch your tongue, donara.”

Alaina didn’t have the energy to be afraid of him. “Whatever, I’m tired. I’ll sit where you tell me to sit, for however long you want.”

Gurun let out a snort, took her by the arm, and pulled her around a corner and into the main gathering hall of the barracks.

It was mayhem in there.

Cursii were everywhere, sitting at the tables and on the tables, most of them half or all naked, some of them fighting, sparring, arm-wrestling or actual wrestling, and there were house slaves amongst them, as well. It was a combination mosh pit and orgy, and Alaina had never seen anything like it. Wide-eyed, she let Gurun pull her through the crowd, which parted around them, leading her to a dais at one end of the room and the single chair placed upon it. Some of the cursii paused in their activities, watching as Gurun pushed her to the seat, and when Gurun lifted a hand, indicating her place on display, a deafening roar went up from the cursii, cheering wildly. Then they resumed whatever it was they had been doing, and the roar quieted to a still-too-loud rumble. Alaina felt herself flush with embarrassment and grasped the arms of the chair, looking up at Gurun.

The head slave arched his eyebrows at her meaningfully. “Stay. Until I return.”

She nodded, and then Gurun left the gathering hall entirely, and Alaina was stuck in her seat.

The gathering hall had huge, high ceilings with lamps hanging down, illuminating the musty, windowless space. It was hot with this many bodies, and Alaina started to sweat. She didn’t know where to look. Everywhere her eyes wandered there were naked aliens fighting or fucking, sometimes both at once, and it was all overwhelming. Suddenly she was grateful she wasn’t expected to participate in such
revelry
. But her eyes sought Vega in all the tangle and push of bodies. He didn’t seem to be there. She wasn’t sure if that made her feel relieved or disappointed.

Vega could hear the gathering in the barracks from his little room in the slaves quarters, it was so loud. But then it was always loud. Even had he not been wounded, he never participated in these sanctioned feasts. He wasn’t interested in fighting the other cursii outside of the games, or in fucking the other slaves. Typically, he just retired to his room to wait it out until they were all unconscious and he could finally get some sleep. Sometimes Bathari joined him for a cup of wine and some conversation. Tonight it was particularly annoying because he couldn’t even have the wine, and even so far away they were
still
so damn loud he couldn’t sleep.

But he heard the roar go up and knew that Gurun had brought the donara down to witness it all. Nothing else would have summoned that sudden surge in noise. If his brothers had been willing to murder him for such a prize, he couldn’t begin to think what sort of ridiculous posturing they were doing now while she looked on. He felt bad for her. She clearly didn’t want to be the donara, didn’t want to be given to any of them. Even though this was the society Vega had been born into, he never accepted the idea that slavery was the only way to keep peace between the systems. It was all so cruel and empty, the fighting and the sex, the lists, and the politics. All he had to hold onto were thoughts of home.

And yet, his thoughts turned over and over again to Alaina instead.

After some effort, he managed to sit up in the bed. His side screamed with pain but he ignored it, shoving himself to his feet. In just his linen trousers and nothing else, he left the little room and shuffled his way down the corridor towards the barracks gate, the sound of the revelry getting louder and louder as he approached it, his movements slow but steady. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing, but impulse took him towards the barracks and he was still drugged enough to let it.

He wanted to see Alaina. He wanted his brothers to see that they had not killed him, and he was not afraid of them. But mostly he wanted to see the donara.

“You should not be out of bed, cursu.”

Vega turned, and there was the cleaning girl, Nyssa. She smiled, the expression unattractive on her yellow-scaled face.

“I want to go below,” he said simply. “To join my brothers.”

Nyssa
tsked
softly, shaking her head a little. “Domina wanted you to stay apart from them, cursu. For your own safety.”

Vega bared his teeth at her. “You’re not the domina. Give me your card and let me through. I know you sent the donara downstairs the other night hoping she’d be killed for it. Let me through the gate or I’ll tell the domina all.”

Nyssa hissed at him, rolling her eyes. “If you were going to do that, you’d have already done it.”

“Maybe I’m just biding my time.”

She glared. “If I do this for you, you’ll owe me. The domina will find out and she’ll have me whipped.”

“I’ll take the blame for it,” Vega assured her. “She won’t whip you. I’ll say I threatened you, forced you, and she’ll believe me. You’re a house slave, you’re not expected to stand up to a cursu.”

“Even one so wounded he couldn’t hurt me if he tried,” Nyssa drawled.

“I’ll protect you,” Vega insisted.

“I still want a debt,” she said. “I still want a favor.”

Vega snorted. “What exactly will I owe you, Nyssa?”

She blinked, as though surprised he knew her name. That didn’t surprise Vega, though. He knew all their names. He paid attention, but most of the cursii did not. And the higher he got in the lists, the more people thought him ignorant of all else. Their mistake, over and over again.