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“You won?” Fuck, I was an adult, well done with puberty (thank god), but my voice cracked.
The faintest smile tilted his lips. “I did. I won the day. For you. For our child.”
I swallowed hard, Crux’s cold hands and cruel devices like phantoms across my skin. His voice, oily and slick, saying how eager I was to mate with the “father of all Thorzan.”
I couldn’t shake the thought that he meant himself. I shivered, surged forward, and buried my face in the curve of Vorian’s shoulder, my breath hitching on a sob as the tears overwhelmed me again.
It was Vorian. He’d won, and maybe I wouldn’t have the life I wanted, but—but I wanted him to be the father of my kid. Because he wanted me. Not because of my DNA, but because he liked me, or he thought I was amusing, or—listen, I wasn’t willing to look at it too closely. Vorian was the best thing that’d happened to me on Thorzan.
At once, Vorian’s arms came around my waist. He eased me down to sit on my calves and pulled me close—close enough that with one swing of my leg, I could crawl into his lap.
I did. I couldn’t help it. I wanted him close, even as the stretched cloth of my beige dress left me exposed and vulnerable, without briefs and spread across this alien’s lap.
He didn’t say a word, didn’t seem to notice. His enormous hand swept up my back, a soft clicking sound in his throat as he stroked me through my shaking.
“Kenosi—with the black eyes?” Vorian said quietly.
I nodded against his neck without lifting my head. Kenosi had irises like circles of coal, but I didn’t think Vorian had spoken directly to any of the other humans.
“He said that you needed me.” Somehow, even when I was in his lap, pressing in as close to him as I could get, it sounded like he doubted that.
Again, I nodded. My throat was too tight from crying to say anything.
Slowly, Vorian slipped his hand between us. He pressed his palm flat against my chest, the curve between his thumb and first finger cupping the front of my neck lightly.
It should have scared me. He could’ve choked the life out of me—wouldn’t have been the first to try—but somehow, I felt safer with his hands on me than I did when he’d been gone.
Gently, he eased me back, the force of his palm an easy but firm pressure just below my collarbones. His long fingers clenched on my shoulder. Using his other hand, he wiped the tears off my cheeks with the lightest touch of his fingertips.
“I had thought to please you with my victory,” Vorian said. I thought that was worry on his face, but I’d never seen the expression before. I couldn’t be sure.
“It does. I mean, you do. Please me. I’m—I’m so glad you won, Vorian. I don’t want—” Emotion choked my words again, but when I tried to shrink down, Vorian touched my chin and held me still.
“What don’t you want? What happened?” The only sign of his upset was a tightening of his fingers on my shoulder, clutching me until I gasped. He let go at once. “Have you been hurt?”
He cared. God, he couldn’t know how much that meant, just to have somebody care. But I didn’t know how far that stretched, whether or not he would think I was just being silly. He’d broken his leg, and I was shaking over something I’d agreed to—something that hadn’t actually hurt me at all.
My lip trembled and I shook my head. “No. I mean, not really. I—”
He waited patiently, his fingers a slow, soothing stroke across my cheek.
“Crux asked for a donation. From us. The humans. I thought, well—I thought if you won, it wouldn’t hurt to—to be the first?”
“Did he rape you?” Vorian was growling now, and there was fury there. It hadn’t occurred to me that Crux would have done more than harvest my semen, but—but it struck me then that he could have.
I shook my head fast. “No, I volunteered. I—I just... you were going to win. I’d have had to do it eventually, right?”
He only frowned, almost like he would assure me I wouldn’t have to when we both knew that was the whole reason the Thorzi had brought us here.
It was okay that he stayed quiet. Now that the words had started, I couldn’t stop them. “I want you. I mean, I want our child. But if anybody’s using my come for anything...” Oh god, this was more awkward than I’d expected. “I just—I didn’t expect it to feel so empty. Like I’m, I don’t know. Meat. Or not even that. Just that I’m worthless, and I’m stuck here, and there’s nothing I can do or change. And I’ve been telling myself it’s no worse than being stuck anywhere else, but what if I die here? I could make my donations, or whatever, and then—then I could just—am I gonna die here, Vorian?”
My limbs felt cold, like I’d stuck my toes and fingers in a bucket of ice water and the chill was working its way up through my bones. I missed a home I didn’t even have. Missed Petey. Was he worried about me since I’d disappeared?
It struck me that I’d never see him again. Never see Earth. And I was scared—shaking, while Vorian did his best to soothe me.
“No, Beau,” Vorian said, his voice thick. His thumb swiped across my lips. “I would never allow harm to befall you.”
But there I was, a femme guy in a dress I didn’t own, only here because I had some useful DNA. Maybe. By Crux’s estimation, anyway.
