The sun reaches its peak when we encounter the other pair.
They're resting in the shade of a rock formation that looks like frozen splash patterns. The male is huge, bigger than Khor, with grey-green scales that have a sickly sheen. The female ishuman, or was. Her transformation has gone differently than mine or Senna's. Where Senna had patches of scales, this female has... wrong skin. It looks melted in places, reformed. Her eyes are blank, staring at nothing.
“Gresh.” Khor's voice is carefully neutral.
“Khor. Traveling to harvest?” The grey male doesn't stand, doesn't acknowledge me except for his nostrils flaring. “Dangerous time for it.”
“Payment is due.”
“Yes. Always payments. Always demands.” Gresh pulls his female closer, and she doesn't react. Doesn't even blink. “This one's payment was particularly difficult. Three vials required. Took four attempts.”
I can see why. The female has scars everywhere. Not battle scars. Harvest scars. She's been used as bait or distraction repeatedly. The blank look makes sense now. Her mind has gone somewhere else to survive.
“Your female is not bonded.” Gresh says it like an observation, but his interest is obvious. “Pretty. Intact. Responsive?”
“Very responsive.” Khor's hand finds my hip, pulls me against him. “Violent too. Already blooded three who tried to take her.”
That's an exaggeration, but Gresh doesn't know that.
“Violent ones survive longer. Mine was violent once.” He touches his female's face, and she doesn't react. “Now she's perfectly docile. Took six cycles but worth it.”
Six cycles. Years of whatever he did to break her mind that thoroughly. My hand finds the wrapped obsidian in my pack.
“We need to continue.” Khor's voice suggests this conversation is over.
“To the crater? Today? Bold. The Sketh-kar were singing last night. Means they're building to frenzy peak.” Gresh stands, hisfemale moving when he tugs her leash. An actual leash around her throat. “We'll wait. Safer to harvest after frenzy, when they're exhausted.”
“Some of us are strong enough to harvest during.”
It's a calculated insult. Gresh's scales shift to threat colors, but he doesn't pursue it. Just laughs, the sound like grinding stone.
“Strong. Yes. We'll see who returns with vials and who returns as meat.” He pulls his female past us. She moves like a puppet, no will of her own. As she passes, her eyes focus on me for just a second. There's something in them. Not blank. Calculating. Waiting.
She's not as broken as she pretends.
When they're gone, I release a breath I didn't know I was holding.
“That's what happens? To females who stay?”
“That's what happens with some males. Not all. Not me.” He starts walking again, faster now. “Gresh believes in breaking. I believe in choosing. Different approaches.”
“But the result is the same. Owned females.”
“Result is never the same. She survives. You live.”
The distinction shouldn't matter but does. I think of Senna, bitter but vital. This female, pretending to be broken while she waits. And me, collecting weapons while my body craves its owner.
We find the lava tube cave as the sun sets. It's a perfect natural shelter, carved by ancient magma flows. The walls are smooth, glassy, and retain heat from the day. Too much heat. Within minutes I'm sweating through my torn clothes.
“Strip.”
“It's too hot for sex.”
“Temperature is perfect for sex. But that's not why. Need to check for crystal powder, pearl gas residue. Either could kill you in sleep.”
He's thorough, checking every inch of skin, using more of that burning liquid on cuts I didn't know I had. His touch is clinical until it isn't. Until his hands linger on the inside of my thighs, his thumb brushing where I'm wet despite everything.
“Always ready. Even after walking volcanic hell. Even after seeing Gresh's female.” His breeding cock emerges, already dripping. “Tonic ensures you want breeding no matter what.”
