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I stare around, at him, and at my surroundings, though the latter is pointless. I know the king is out there, and all his noble courtiers, the rulers of Megaris, the cruel bastards who have inflicted a life of ultra suffering on the humans who cannot escape them. I wish I could see them if only to hate them and to let them see my hatred actually focused upon them.
“You can kill me, but you won’t change the truth!” I shout my defiance in their general direction. I’m not actually sure what the truth is, but it feels good to threaten them with it. In the midst of my flailing defiance, I spot a bank of cameras mounted above my head. They are pointed at me, nasty lenses directed to capture every tortured expression, every writhing gasp of agony.
“Enough!”
Rath grips me about the throat. The grasp no doubt looks rough, but he is careful not to choke the air out of me completely.
There is an element of play to this, but he is making it look painful and terrible. He leans in and speaks so quietly nobody can hear him besides me. I am bared for all Megaris, and yet, suddenly, this is the most intimate experience of my life. I am locked entirely into him, and he into me.
“Scream,” he growls in my ear.
I do as he says. I scream at the top of my lungs, the most bloodcurdling and dramatic scream I can muster.
“AIIIIEEEEEEEEEEOOOEEEEEE LET ME GOOO YOU FILTHY KORABI BASTARD!”
“Absolutely not. I will never let you go. I will make you feel the consequences of every bit of the punishment you deserve!”
He handles me around the table and pushes me down across it. My ass is bared and raised to all Megaris. I have become represented by my rear; my rebellion is now as futile as it can be. Rath palms the swelling mounds of my backside. I feel his claws digging ever so slightly into my flesh. It’s affection disguised as the infliction of pain, as is everything he is doing.
Rath picks up a thick whippy lash and bends down low over me. His lips and sharp teeth are less than an inch from my ear as I squirm against the table, feeling the unyielding surface trapping me between it and Rath’s massive, uniformed body.
“You asked me why I didn’t kill you. It is because I love you. I have loved you since I met you.”
I have felt the truth of that emotion many times in our acquaintance over the months, but I have never understood it. We seem to be mortal enemies. Why has he shown me such uncharacteristic mercy time and time again?
His lash lands. Hard. Harder than I’ve ever been struck before. In that fiery burst of public pain—I finally remember.
* * *
A dangerous number of months ago…
He’s hot.
I want him.
I’m going to have him.
Those three thoughts follow one another in quick succession. I am staring at a korabi soldier, knowing that I shouldn’t be. He is the embodiment of everything that is wrong in my world. Usually, I ignore the korabi. I like to trade with elites. They’re sweet and stupid, and they pay well for garbage. But I can’t ignore this korabi. He’s not even looking at me, and yet somehow, he’s drawing every ounce of my attention.
I feel a fizzy tingling in my belly when I look at him. My heart races, and my mind creates scenarios that can obviously never happen—my libido swings into overdrive.
I should ignore him. Engaging with a korabi means inviting trouble of a kind a human rarely survives. But there is something about this one, something I don’t trust. Something I am drawn toward.
He hasn’t even noticed me.
It’s time I got his attention.
I ball my hand into a fist, and I punch him right in the face. If I did that to a human, he’d be infuriated. To a korabi, being socked on the chin is basically like having your hand shaken. He looks at me, furious blue eyes locked on me with interest. I smile brightly, lace my fingers together and sway my hips back and forth with a suggestive twist of my ankle.
“Hello, big boy. Looking for anything in particular?”
I’m coming on strong because you have to come on strong to get a korabi’s attention. They look through us, walk over us, and generally ignore us unless and until we show them our strength.
“Go away, human. You have no right to be here.”
He’s wrong. We are in the Unzone. Everybody has the right to be here. Some people call it the Blindspot. Whatever you call it, there’s no surveillance here. Something to do with lead in the nearby hills and a tectonic field of magnetic interference. I don’t know the details. I do know that this is prime recruiting territory for my band of rebels.
