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“Are you entirely unable to act with respect, human? Is it somehow missing from your DNA? Or were you never taught to behave?”
He is asking the questions quite genuinely, as if he is worried I am somehow incapable of being anything other than an asshole. The scary thing is, I’ve wondered that myself from time to time. Has the job and my life made me so hardened to everything that all I have is dark humor, donuts, and one liners?
“I… don't know.”
“You are honest, at least. I do not fear deception from you. But there is something inside you, Ariel. Something which swims in the deep and tries to keep from being seen.”
Jesus. He might be the most perceptive male I have ever met. I can’t even look at him from this position, and yet I feel very seen. There are parts of me I’ve been hiding what feels like my whole life. When I interacted with people, it was so good being a cop. I didn’t have to be me. I just had to be a police officer, and that was easy.
But I’m not a cop here. I’m a captive. I’m his captive, and I am at his mercy.
I lie still and silent, like a little animal trying to avoid detection by a predator. But it is too late. I have already been caught, and I can tell King Brawn is going to take me apart one way or another until he finds all my secrets and exposes all my shame.
He looks like a monster.
But he’s not the monster. I am.
There are things I’ve done, and there are places inside me even I am afraid to visit.
He lifts me up and he sits me in his lap. I work hard to avoid his gaze, lowering my head and letting my hair cover my face so he can’t read my expression. I forget, of course, that he exists in multiple dimensions more than I do. Maybe I can’t actually hide from him. Maybe there are parts of me forever laid bare to him.
“You were an outcast on your world,” he says. “You saw armed soldiers and you made them your enemy when it would have been far easier to submit to their will.”
“What they were doing was wrong. They wanted to kill you because we are a petty, terrified species and we always kill what we don’t understand.”
“Not all of you.”
“Not all of us, no, but the ones who hold the guns and give the orders, those ones don’t want to be invaded by interdimensional aliens.”
“They don’t really have a choice,” Brawn replies. “Sooner or later, the Earth will be invaded. It is only a matter of time.”
“By you?”
“By someone who wants access to a sentient pool of carbon-based slaves,” he says. “The universe grows more crowded and competitive by any unit of time you might care to define.”
“You really think the Earth is going to be invaded?”
Suddenly, I don’t care so much about my sore ass, or my bruised pride, or even my shameful hunger for his cock.
“Perhaps not in our lifetimes. But eventually, yes. Humanity will have to learn to defend itself, which is why, I have to admit, that the policy of slaying alien intruders on sight is not as bad an idea as you might think.”
“So you think I should have left you to die?”
“I am forever flattered you did not. I am saying the impulses of your armies are not wrong. Your species has a long way to go in terms of being able to defend itself.”
“Especially if the attack comes from the eleventh dimension.”
“Exactly,” he says, before he realizes I am being sassy again. I don’t know what the eleventh dimension is. I’m pretty sure even comprehending other dimensions is out of the reach of my wet human brain meat.
I am starting to feel slightly better in my flesh, and slightly worse in my mind. I don’t know what to make of all this information and thought and…
“It is okay to be confused, Ariel.”
I snap my head around to him. “Can you read my fucking mind?”
“No,” he smiles, all fangs again. “But I can sort of see your thoughts, they are like colored waves. The content is not clear to me, but heightened emotions are. I can tell when you are scared, when you are confused, and when you are aroused.”
Oh god. That’s more than enough information for him to know how I feel about him. I’m sure every time I look at him I must light up like a Christmas tree.
“Do not be ashamed,” he says. “I find it endearing. You are my glowing treasure.”
I am ashamed, and a little scared, and I don’t know what else. So many things. I've never had so many feelings before, let alone attempted to understand them. Usually, if I have a feeling, I work until it goes away. But there’s no work here. There is just the king. And his come.
