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“No,” he smiles. “It did not. I should have retrieved you immediately in hindsight, but that is a mistake that will stay in the past. I will certainly never let you go again.”
Those last words make me freeze with an odd kind of hope. “You won’t? You’re not going to sell me again, once I’m good?”
“No,” he says, picking up a hairbrush. I feel my ass get hot at the sight of it, but it is not intended for my rear. Instead he gestures for me to take a seat and starts to brush my hair. I sit on the bed and let him tend to me, enjoying the feeling of bristles running over my scalp.
It seems there are certain advantages to being good. Ark certainly seems to like me, which surprises me given how awful I’ve been from the moment I met him until around about now. I had my reasons, of course. I was scared, I was angry, I was fucking sold. I’ve been struggling for survival on this planet in a different way than I used to struggle on Earth. There, it was holding my body together that was the problem. Here it feels like my mind is what is at stake, keeping myself a free creature in spite of all the pressure to collapse internally.
“Today may be challenging for you. It will certainly be challenging for me. I ask that you restrain any impulses to chaos, not because the consequence will be punishment, but because I am asking nicely.”
“Appealing to my better nature. That’s a risky approach.”
Ark snorts gently. “I am sure it is.”
With my hair brushed out into silky skeins, he brushes it back from my face and brings another item to bear, a light but colorful collar that flashes pink and red for a second before turning gold and blue to match the outfit. A leash follows, clipped to the collar and then attached to his belt. I now have approximately four feet of free movement.
“Don’t scowl,” Ark chides me gently. “It is not so bad.”
“No? You put the fucking collar on then, and I’ll hold the leash.”
He chuckles. “You don’t need to worry about me running away and doing something dangerous. This is for your safety.”
I’m not going to argue. I know he is treating me well. He’s being very nice to me, and he doesn’t have to be. He could do what my previous owners did and lock me away until I thought I was going to go completely mad. I have honed my escape skills on this planet out of mental health necessity.
“Ready to go, I think,” Ark says, brushing my hair away from my face again. “You look very sweet, pet.”
“Then this isn’t an outfit. It’s a disguise.”
* * *
We travel into the city, and not in his pet moving truck, but in one of the sleek flying saucer type vehicles that skim about the place day and night. I remember when humans thought they were going to get flying machines like this. Never actually eventuated. Not even for very rich people, which was a bit of a surprise.
Ark pilots toward the very center of the city, where the spire-topped buildings are at their highest, and the spiderweb tendrils of footpaths are at their densest. Sitting beside him in the bulbous transparent cab of the machine, I feel perfectly safe, which is wild considering we are hurtling through the air at incredible speeds.
At the very center of the city is a building that I assume has to be their government building. It has a certain dark gravitas to it. Unlike most of the buildings which are a pale sandstone to pearl white in hue, this one is obsidian black and stands imposingly at the very center of it all. From the height of Ark’s ship, the city looks like a wheel or an eye. Everything emanates from this dark center.
Ark dips the controls and we begin to spiral down around the dark concrescence, going far lower than most of the other spire buildings, down to the shadows of the cluster of buildings until we land on a heavily guarded platform replete with sentries holding very imposing looking weapons.
I’m surprised when Ark slides the hood of the vehicle open and steps out, motioning for me to follow. Nobody so much as asks him who he is, which means they must know who he is. This doesn’t seem like the sort of place people just wander in and out of.
I press much closer to him than my leash requires. I do not like this place. It feels oppressive and heavy. Most of the city is just your general decadent futuristic utopia, but there is a pall over this part of it, a place where the sun never shines.
“What is this place?” I whisper the question to Ark while I feel the eyes of the guards on me. These guys have a very different vibe to the cake indulging aristocrats I am used to. They are broader, more powerful, and not one of them looks like they eat cake. They ripple under tight uniforms that show off scales and muscles alike.
“It is a prison,” Ark says.
I look at him with wide eyes. Did I piss him off that much by trying to steal all his many items last night? Is he done with me? Is this where all the very worst pets go?
“But… I thought you were going to keep me?”
“You’re not going to prison,” Ark chuckles, thoroughly amused. “My brother is here.”
“He’s a prison warden? Makes sense. Seems like something your family would be into.”
He does not reply. Instead, he looks solemn and perhaps a little hurt. I shut up about three sentences too late and follow him into the interior of this dark palace, through a door grilled with lasers that scan us both as we pass through. I have no choice. My leash is firmly attached to his belt. Where he goes, I go.
“Arkan Voros to see Zain Voros,” he says to the stern looking guard who greets us once the heavy bars have closed behind us, swallowing us into the interior of the prison.
I am beginning to find it hard to breathe easily. My chest feels tight. My head feels light. The walls themselves seem to be sliding toward me.
