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He leans down, closing the distance created by our height disparity. “My judgment is all that matters to you now. My judgement is what separates you from comfort or pain. You will answer my questions with respect and care, because if you do not, you will be disciplined until you do.”
Goddamn. I need to take some notes, because what he just said made every hair on the back of my neck stand upright.
There’s a part of me that respects this approach. I know what it’s like to try to take control of people. You’ve got to be harsh enough to get their attention and make them take you seriously. I take a moment before snapping something smart back at him, and just look at him.
He is a very tall, very broad-shouldered, purple-scaled alien with powerful wings now tucked up behind what has to be one of the most muscular backs I’ve ever borne witness to. The strength it must take to beat those wings and fly the way he does is beyond anything a human could ever hope to experience.
He has thick raven hair that falls to his shoulders and gleaming, slitted eyes that flash with a gold and green hue depending on the shifting of the light. His features are hard and alien, but also rather humanoid. Certainly human enough for me to be able to read his expression — which is wildly unimpressed.
“Who the hell are you?” I find the question rising to my lips. I know he’s not officially the alpha, because that’s the predatory saurian who has Sullivan in his custody — and I get the feeling these creatures don’t do double alphas. Saurians like hierarchy. But looking at this creature, I truly cannot understand how he would be second in command of anything. There’s something about him I recognize, a natural dominance, a comfort with control. I know I have similar energy sometimes — though I guess that never made me alpha either. Not until I rose up against Captain Sullivan and yet still somehow ended up on a mad mission to save her ass.
“I am Avel,” he says. “And you will regard me as your master or suffer the consequences.”
I am not going to regard him as my master. That would be the end of me. It would be the end of my hopes for freedom. When I took over the Mare, became captain, and started making decisions that were finally in the best interests of the crew, I felt a surge of freedom that had long been missing. I finally had control over my own destiny. This alien seeks to snatch that from me. I will not allow it.
I am going to get back to my ship and get the hell off of this planet. I know the girls have it cloaked somewhere close. I know they’ll be monitoring my location. And probably Sullivan’s, as well. No matter how many times she almost gets us killed, they have a soft spot for her.
I swiftly consider my options under the alien’s glare. I could wait for them to come find me. If I was lost anywhere else, staying in one place would be the answer. But staying in the possession of a dominant alien with a punishment fetish is a practically intolerable proposition. Overbearing does not begin to describe Avel. I can already tell he is absolutely obsessed with dominance and control. I wonder if that is just how he is, or if this is the manifestation of similar frustrations to the ones I harbored before I removed Sullivan as captain. Does he also yearn to be in a position to make better decisions? Does it rankle him to have to serve an alpha? I can imagine it does.
“You will be in my sight at all times, as I cannot trust you out of it.”
Great. So he’s going to be moving me around. Well, that might present a few more opportunities for rescue, I suppose. I do trust the crew to make decent decisions in my absence. I have to. I have to put my faith in the women I have travelled the stars with for years now.
“Are you listening to me, human?”
I look him dead in the eye. “My name is Raine.”
I want him to know that I am not afraid of him. I want him to know that I am not afraid of anything. Not even death. Once an adversary knows what you are scared of, they have already won.
“Well, Raine,” he says. “From this moment onward, consider yourself my personal property. You will obey me in all things, and I will take care of…”
I’m not listening to any more of this shit. I’m not his goddamn personal property. I don’t care how big or bad he is. I don’t care how much the way his eyes flashing in that frighteningly handsome, scaled face makes me quiver. I belong to myself, and myself alone.
There’s one surefire way to prove that to him without words. He thinks I will be intimidated by him. He thinks I will fear captivity. I know how to show him otherwise. I run back to the ledge as fast as I can and leap off. I do this almost as quickly as I think of it, and the unexpectedness of it surprises him into a moment of inaction.
This is an act of sheer impulse and absolute rebellion. I let out a wild laugh as I start to fall. The feeling of gravity taking hold of me is beginning to become familiar the second time around. It is quite satisfying in a way, to be drawn down, inexorably down as all things are. In this rushing wind I could be myself. I could be a rock. I could be a feather. Everything falls. It’s the great equalizer.
Wind rushes past my face, fills my ears, makes me close my eyes. I am laughing all the way down, feeling some old wildness that I buried long ago coming to the fore in this moment of madness.
The feeling of massive arms wrapping around me and the sound of expansive wings being extended all at once herald yet another rescue — or is it capture? Regardless, I am caught in stern and displeased arms.
This time Avel does not say a word. This time he just growls, a sound that resonates with the very marrow in my bones. The shiver that runs through me is absolutely delicious. I discover that I enjoy his anger, directed in this protective and frustrated way. I know exactly how he feels, having run a crew of willful pirates for years. It is rare that I get the indulgence of being the problem in a situation. I might very well enjoy it.
The return to the perch is faster this time, and his grip on me even tighter. I could complain, but the wind would sweep my words away before I got a chance to form them, so I do not bother.
He lands again, dragging me back into that middle interior room, where he sets about tearing my clothing from me, removing a very expensive suit with rough motions of his claws, shearing through fabric and ripping seams until he has me completely naked. It all happens so fast there is barely a moment to process. He grabs a lash from what I now realize is a stand of implements and whips it across the back of my thighs hard enough to make me squeal.
It feels like a line of pure fire has been installed across skin that has rarely, if ever, taken punishment. Naturally, I feel outrage and frustration, but those are not the only two things I feel. I also feel a strong heat pulsing through my nethers, an excitement and an arousal that has absolutely no business whatsoever existing.
I start to squirm in the attempt to avoid his lash, but there is no escaping this punishment. He takes hold of me by the hair, fisting his hand in it and using it to control my head. I am much shorter than he is, and his grip means that I am just barely able to reach the floor on my tiptoes, dancing around naked before his furious alien form, my skin turning bright red and developing painful welts every time the implement lands.
Whatever he is beating me with is something that hurts like hell, something clearly engineered to punish creatures of his kind. I wonder how a saurian feels pain. Their scales must surely protect them from relatively soft impacts like this one? My tender skin is not made for such an implement. I start to whimper not only every time it lands, but every time in between, as I anticipate fresh pain.
Around a dozen harsh lashes land across my legs and ass, biting unpleasantly every time they make contact. Pain rushes through me, along with a certain sense of outrage and shame. How dare he do this to me!? The way he is holding me is a disrespect in itself. It makes me feel very small and very weak, and it makes it absolutely impossible to avoid a single one of those damn strokes.
After a dozen lashes, he puts the implement to the side and picks up a different one. This is more like a length of rattan. It is swishy and thicker than the one he used at first, and I discover it to be more painful in some ways. Less stingy, more deep and thuddy. He brings it down across the underside of my ass, catching the lower parts of my cheeks and creating a deeper heat that begins to seep deeper inside me almost immediately, finding little intimate places.
Without another word to me, one by one, he goes through each of the tools in his sick little collection, giving me a taste of all the many ways he can make me hurt. I wish he’d say something so I could argue, but I can’t even form words. The impulse to apologize rises in me, but I choke it back. I’m not going to submit to him. I’m not going to give him what he wants. He can beat me all he likes.
