Page 2 of Beast Unburdened

Farn, the biggest Krektar, lowered the remote. He moved it towards me with an unpleasant grin and I had time to see that the dial was turned nearly all the way up. If he made me experience that, I had no doubt I’d pass out in seconds. I wouldn’t hang in there for nearly a minute as the doctor had.

He was already struggling back to his feet, his creepy black eyes even looked shiny with unshed tears. When the mangy one, Frek gave him a shove he stumbled towards the panel near my side, right next to the wall with the creepy robotic arm. With shaking hands he worked the touch screen until with a hissing sound a panel opened below. “This should work,” he said through bloodstained lips.

With a deep breath, he got his shaking hand under control and lifted a small metallic cylinder from the panel. “It’ll only sting a little,” he murmured and then he brought the thing down to my belly, unceremoniously rucking up my blouse and blazer to jam the thing into my tender skin. I hissed in shock but as promised it barely hurt at all.

“Done?” Demanded one of the Krektar males and when he nodded they started unstrapping me and without a backward glance dragged me out of the medical room. I struggled at first, terrified of wherever they were taking me. None of them had said what I was here for. Then Farn waved a meaty fist in my face holding the remote and I stopped fighting, allowing them to easily escort me through several metal hallways in various stages of dirty and disgusting.

In fact, I was relieved I was still wearing my uncomfortable but hella pretty black stilettos because the floor looked like it had been sprayed with blood in several places. Oh crap, where were they taking me? It was getting progressively worse too.

Another wave of fear swamped me and I felt my eyes fill with tears, I furiously fought against those. Crying was not going to help here. I hadn’t cried when the slave doctor had performed surgery on me without anesthesia. I wasn’t going to cry now. Though I really wanted to have a nervous breakdown.

A massive metal door barred our progress when we turned a corner and Farn, who was in the lead keyed in a series of symbols on the small screen next to it. I was close enough to easily see what he did and tried my hardest to memorize the ten-digit code (at least I assumed they were alien digits).

At my job at the bank, I generally coasted by easy, at least in the numbers department because I had a head for them. I remembered numbers as easily as I remembered my own name. I hated my job because of the human element actually; I should have just become an accountant.

But my numbers quirk didn’t help when I didn’t actually know which numbers I was remembering. Whatever translator tech the Doc had installed just went as far as translating what I heard, not what I saw, unfortunately.

The door slid open with a groaning sound, its mechanism clearly struggling. It became obvious why only when I was ushered through the door, two massive dents near eye height on the door disfigured the frame here.

Beyond the panel lay what could only be described as a wholly medieval-looking cellblock. No futuristic lights or panels, no white walls like in the medical area. Just gray metal walls and a ceiling that stretched far higher than could be properly illuminated with the small yellowed and dirty floor lights that lined the hallway leading away between the two rows of cells.

The cells themselves consisted of metal walls on three sides and a barred front with no apparent door. The cell nearest to the door seemed empty and held only a small cot with a blanket and what appeared to be a metal bowl meant for waste. From its dirt-encrusted state, I could tell what was one of the main causes for the horrid stench that filled the place. It was clear none of these cells had been on the receiving end of a cleaning product in a long time.

“Are you sure about putting her in with the Beast Farn?” The mangy whiny one asked from my left. “If he tears her to shreds those hundred credits are a complete waste!” Those words did not fill me with confidence. Tear me to shreds? What the hell was the Beast? Which was clearly pronounced with a capital B.

“Oh shut it Frek,” one of the others growled back, “It’s not as if you wanted to pay your share of those credits anyway! And the Beast is unique, we’re going to get massively rich selling his offspring!” I could practically hear them salivating at those words, see the dollar signs in their freaky yellow eyes.

Except it sounded like they were planning on using me as a broodmare for whatever creature this Beast was, just to get rich. Was that the fertility shot the doctor had given me? To help get me pregnant? The thought of some creepy alien using me and then these evil bastards taking the resulting offspring was awful. God, these were terrifying thoughts. I actually considered fighting them so they ended up killing me.

And then there were the occupants of the cells; they were enough to give me nightmares. While the first two cells (one on either side) had been empty, the next four sets held a prisoner each. As it was very dark in each cell some of the occupants were hard to make out. But a few came all the way to the front, to the bars so I had a good view.

While the Krektar were ugly, they were bipedal and still appeared very humanoid, some of these prisoners barely resembled humans at all. I saw one male who was completely covered in a thick pelt and his head was shaped almost entirely like a fox; mobile ears, coloring, and thick tail included. As I passed his cell he licked at his snout and leered from an impressive height straight down my half-opened shirt. And he was clearly male because the scrap of cloth that covered his sex was barely adequate.

Another male had skin that was so closely resembling rock it was uncanny and his legs were shaped like a lion’s legs, his face grotesque with fangs and tusks and horns. Huge leathery bat wings spread out behind his back with clawed tips. If gargoyles were real, this was exactly what one would look like.

I breathed a sigh of relief each time we continued past another cell with yet another terrifying creature. The end of the hallway ended in a slightly larger cell and I had a sinking feeling we were headed for that one. It was completely swathed in shadows, so I couldn’t tell much about its occupant except for two glowing emerald green eyes. That wouldn’t be too terrifying on its own if it weren’t for the fact that these eyes were at least seven feet off the ground. Whoever those eyes belonged to was humongous.

Now Farn paused, licking fat gray lips while he gave me a leer. “It occurs to me,” he growled with annoyance. “That we should have sampled her ourselves before getting Doc to give her the fertility shot. After the Beast is done with her she’ll be ruined...”

There was some groaning and grumbling from the other three Krektar. Who I noted stayed well out of range of the long arm reach of any of the occupants of the cells. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not that they now couldn’t risk knocking me up themselves. Probably relieved; one rapist was better than five right?

“Rise and shine ugly!” Farn eventually yelled. He unhooked a long stick with metal prongs on one end from his belt and banged it against the bars of the largest cell at the end of the hall. “Show your ugly mug Beast, let your baby momma see what she’s in for before we lock her in the dark with you.”

I gulped in fear, my heart pounding and my palms sweaty as I awaited what was about to step into the meager light. This was going to be bad, I knew it. I was so desperately wishing I’d never gotten up that morning for work. God, it probably wasn’t anywhere close to the same day, was it? I’d probably been in, what I'm now realizing was a stasis pod, for a long time.

My attention was roughly snapped to the cell, away from my panicky spiraling thoughts, when the cell’s occupant stepped up in front of the bars and into the light. Holy hell! My breath stalled for a moment as I took him in. This guy truly was humongous, he was nearly eight feet tall.

The male before me was bipedal, with two arms and opposable thumbs but that was pretty much where the resemblance to a human ended. If you compared him to a crocodile on two feet you’d come closer, due to the green scales that covered him entirely.

Though his head was actually shaped more like that of a bull placed on top of a neck more like a triangle, his trapezius muscles more like actual trapezoids than those on your average steroid-using gym rat. The reason for those huge muscles was obvious when you took in the bull horns that splayed wide and heavy from the sides of his head, they spanned easily three feet.

A blunted snout with a wide nose topped a maw filled with razor-sharp teeth, the canines long and pointed and deadly sharp. A thick gold ring pierced the nose and a row of glinting blades rose like a mohawk across his scalp to his back.

Fuck, crap, damn… I cursed in my head. His thighs were thicker around than my hips and that was saying something (if you listened to my roommate). Not to mention that those huge arms and feet were tipped with thick black claws and crap, but was that a spiked lizard’s tail swaying behind him? Oh god no, they wanted me to mate with this thing? Was it even sentient?

I felt like utter crap for thinking that the next moment. There was a pain collar tightened around that huge neck, he wasn’t here by choice any more than I was. Then I noted the one soft feature on his huge body, long ears, attached to his head just below the jutting horns, they were shaped sort of like a corn husk. Soft and mobile-looking they flicked once when my eyes landed on them, then drooped all the way down when I flinched at the sudden movement.

“On your knees!” Barked Farn, and he jabbed at the huge alien’s thickly muscled belly with his pronged stick. He slid out of the way effortlessly, his emerald eyes fixated on my face. He’d moved with a dancer’s grace despite his big body, and he hadn’t even looked at the Krektar wielding a weapon at him through the bars.