AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d have to question Nina more about it. She would answer my questions if she knew what was good for her. She stirred and stretched beneath the covers.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her quietly.
She jerked her head toward my voice. I’d surprised her. She bit her lower lip and demurely dropped her eyes, before lifting them back to me.
“I’m sore everywhere,” she answered quietly.
“Good,” I answered, smirking as I recalled just how good her body had felt surrounding mine. Her eyes narrowed and she blinked a few times, before she pushed herself up to a seated position. She curled her arms around her knees almost protectively and glared back at me.
I was reminded of the fiery human who had first caught my eyes in that cage yesterday, standing at those bars and protecting the females behind her even after she’d watched me tear apart grown men right in front of her. That courage had returned to her gaze, now that she was well rested.
I had thought I had taught her who her true master was yesterday. Perhaps I’d been wrong. Maybe she was stronger than I realized.
“Where are we?” she asked. There was an edge to her tone that I didn’t like, but I let it go. For now, anyway.
“On our way to Nassarc. We’ll dock there, sell much of our goods, and relax for a few days before we disembark to our next target,” I replied.
“What have you done with the others?” she pressed, narrowing her eyes in my direction.
“They have been secured below and will remain there. They’re safe and well fed. You don’t have to worry about them,” I responded. I carefully kept the knowledge that I intended to sell them all once we arrived at Nassarc. All of them except for her.
Her lips tensed into a firm line. She didn’t press any further. I studied her more closely. It was clear that her expression told me much about the thoughts running through her head, but right then, she showed something like restraint. As much as I thought I could read her, maybe she was more of an enigma than I had originally pegged her to be. I’d have to be more aware of everything she did now so that I could know for sure.
I sat back.
“We have several days’ journey until we reach the midway point, where we will stop for supplies. If you’re very good, I’ll take you with me and show you more of my world. Maybe I’ll even allow you to wear clothes, or perhaps I won’t,” I mused, watching her expression carefully as I spoke. I could see fury there, but she held herself back again. She dropped those pretty blue eyes down to her hands and she didn’t reply. Feigning demure obedience.
“Tell me about what it means for you to be an Aberrant,” I pressed.
She returned her gaze to me. I waited for her to answer and she did.
“It means that I don’t fit into any of the sectors. I’m not useful for research or hard labor or giving back to the community in some useful way like protecting their lands. I’m different and because of that, I am banished,” she replied. There was a quiet hum of repressed anger in her response, as though she thought that her treatment was unfair. Perhaps it was.
“How do they know this?” I questioned further.
“When a person turns twenty-one, they take a mandatory test. It assesses their natural aptitude for each of the sectors and once properly matched, they will be transported to their new home. Most people are sorted easily this way, but there is the rare event that you fail the test and don’t fit in anywhere. Those people are labeled Aberrant, and once this happens, Earth is no longer their home. As it turns out, they’re shipped and sold all around space,” she answered.
“I see,” I said quietly. I didn’t voice my concerns, but her explanation didn’t satisfy me. For some reason, I felt like there was more to the story, especially where this test she had described was concerned.
“Your tattoo,” she whispered. “It changed color.”
I look down at my shoulder, having absolutely no idea what she meant. I was used to the blazing red color that almost appeared to be fire burning across my skin. It hadn’t changed since I’d been infected except to grow redder and more intense by the day. I expected to see more of the same but as I stared down at my chest, it turned out that she was right. Now it was a more charcoal gray color that glowed just slightly with the fiery blaze it had once been. I’d never seen anything like it. Not on any of my men. This was more than unusual, and I couldn’t hazard a guess at what that meant. I didn’t know if it was bad or good.
“Come, we must go to the medical bay right away,” I replied, deeply concerned in the sudden visual change of the virus. I had a trained doctor on board who was well versed in the intricacies of the sickness that infected us all. We knew that it mutated our DNA and activated the transcription of long repressed portions of our genome. We also knew that it changed us on a very deep fundamental level.
This was a new development and we had to know what it meant.
“You will come with me,” I commanded, expecting her obedience.
“I have no clothes,” she retorted.
“Continue fighting me and you’ll still come with me naked, only your bottom will be bright red as well,” I warned her. Her upper lip rolled just a hair before she caught herself.
“Fine,” she snarled.
“The correct answer is ‘yes, sir.’ If I have to correct you again, you’ll be punished. Is that understood?” I said firmly.
For a long moment, she just stared at me. I could see the possibilities of exactly what my words meant playing across her face, whether to test me or whether or not to give in. Finally, she opened her lips and the sweet sound of her voice met my ears.
