Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“Bralix, I thought we’d agreed—you’re not just grabbing a random woman off the street. These aren’t just common cattle; they’re as sapient as we are.”
Bralix glared at his brother. “Oh come on; I won’t deny they’re intelligent pets, and some of them can be trained to do… moderately basic tasks. That hardly makes them sapient. Nef’eal have wandered the stars for thousands of years; these primates have only just barely come down from the trees.”
Phyrax planted his hands on his hips. “Don’t confuse these humans with the over-domesticated human breeds we have back home,” Phyrax said.
“When our ancestors started selectively breeding humans, they didn’t select for traits such as intelligence, and their young are not encouraged to learn language.
For Crion’s sake, our domesticated breeds come from human bloodlines captured twenty thousand years ago.
You cannot compare a human such as Emery with our pets back home. ”
Bralix took an angry step in his brother’s direction, and as usual, Phyrax didn’t back down an inch. “If it is wrong to capture humans, then by all means—go put your pet back where you found her.”
“I’m not taking her back—she’s mine.”
“Then you have no moral high ground to lecture me, brother,” Bralix said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Phyrax.”
Bralix glanced at Emery, who was huddled with Samulin under the thin sheet. He didn’t miss the look she cast in Phyrax’s direction; he just wished he knew what it meant.
“You must let your brother make his own mistakes; how else is he going to learn?”
Phyrax’s eyebrow arched, and Bralix didn’t trust the look that passed between him and Emery. “Perhaps you’re right. What did you have in mind?”
“I think,” Emery said slowly, “Bralix should go settle his guest into her new accommodations—get her more comfortable.”
For a moment, Phyrax and Emery seemed to have a silent conversation using just their eyes, and Bralix had the distinct impression he was missing something.
“I think you’re right,” Phyrax nodded slowly. “Bralix, you can show your guest to the hold.”
Bralix watched him suspiciously, then turned to the two humans huddled in the sheet. “Come here.” He held out his hand, palm up, and waited.
“It’s okay,” Emery whispered to Samulin, giving her a hug. “Dhavedad means come here. He won’t hurt you.” She released Samulin and stepped aside, leaving his human standing alone, naked and nervous under his gaze.
Samulin hugged herself, visibly trying to make herself smaller, and after a few tense moments, she approached hesitantly to stand before him, her eyes fixed on his hand and her body tense as if ready to flee.
He laid his hand gently on her shoulder, then slid his hand up to warm her nape with his hand. “Veine groone,” he praised.
She trembled under his hand, and the knowledge that she was afraid of him, that she thought he might harm her, left a bad taste in his mouth. He wasn’t averse to dispensing discipline in order to train livestock, and in so doing, ensuring their well-being, but he’d never harm them.
He gave her a moment to settle, waiting for the trembling to subside and for her to release a deep breath, then steered her out of his brother’s quarters and back to the cargo hold.
Samulin was dragging her heels, obviously reluctant to return, but he took his time, counting any co-operation as a win.
With enough handling and repetition, she would become accustomed to his touch, and obedience would become a habit.
They entered the cargo hold, and careful to keep himself between her and the doorway, he released her. Behind him, Phyrax and Emery stood watching them from the corridor, Phyrax tapping away on a tablet he’d brought with him from his quarters.
Samulin quickly put several paces’ distance between them, then watched him warily as she quickly picked up the covering from her bed that he’d put down on the floor for her to sleep on, and wrapped it around herself.
He’d allow it; she’d learn soon enough that nudity didn’t make much difference to human pets.
He was still watching her, his arms folded across his chest, when the door to the corridor whooshed shut.
He placed his palm on the biometric scanner, but the door remained closed. Frowning, he punched in his access code manually; on the third try he managed the correct code, but the door still did not open.
“Phyrax!” He called, thumping the door with his fist. “Can you open the door?”
No response.
From the corner of his eye, Bralix saw Samulin pause her pacing to watch him warily.
“Phyrax!”
When he still got no response, he tapped his comm device on his wrist and held the camera under his chin. “Phyrax! The door to the cargo bay is shut and my access code isn’t working. Can you open the door?”
“No.”
Bralix blinked and stared down at the comm. “What do you mean ‘no’? Open the door.”
“No. I suggest you brace yourself; I’m putting us in low orbit around this planet while you come to your senses.”
Bralix blinked, his mouth gaping in shock. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
“No, but I’m more than happy to help you find yours.”
There was a small pause, and Bralix could hear murmuring in the background before Emery’s voice came over the comm. “Bralix, put Samulin on.”
“Emery—” Bralix snapped.
“Samulin, honey, go find something you can hold on to and brace yourself until we reach orbit. Everything is going to be alright, okay? Bralix might be an asshole, but he won’t hurt you. If he does, I’ll castrate him, and Phyrax will launch him out of a torpedo tube.”
“What is a torpedo tube?” Phyrax asked in the background before the very faint hiss that told him his comm was active, went silent. Bralix seconded his confusion, but Samulin snorted a delicate laugh, covering her mouth with her hand from under the bed covering.
Bralix sighed and shook his head, then regarded his new pet. At least she didn’t seem terrified of him anymore, but she still didn’t want to come too near. He held out his hand to her again, palm up. “Come here.”
She sighed, but she came to him and he led her over to a bank of crates and pushed down on her shoulder to make her sit on the floor.
He slid down to the floor beside her; unlike the high-velocity escape when they’d fled Gavora, this take-off shouldn’t be too taxing, but it was still not a good idea to be standing when the ship started moving.
She didn’t pull away from him, which he counted as a win. The engines started, the deep hum spreading through the bones of this vessel, and as the ship shuddered, she gasped and whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut and hiding her face against her drawn up knees.
“Hey,” he said softly, feeling urge to comfort her. “Come here.” He gathered her onto his lap and held her, and she buried her face in his shoulder instead. “It’s going to be okay, hey?”
He held her like that long after they’d reached orbit and he’d felt the engines power down. Her trembling had stopped, and the tension her left her body, and when he ducked his head down to look at her, he saw that she was asleep.
He should transfer her to her pallet on the floor.
He opted to hold her instead.
The man was evil.
Samulin had woken feeling warm and cozy. She’d still been wrapped in her duvet from her bed on earth, and she hated to admit that the muscled arms around her was the best part. But she didn’t want this to end, so she didn’t move, not wanting to draw attention to her wakefulness.
She’d thought the green pigmentation on his skin had been her imagination before when he was in her apartment—a trick of the light.
It didn’t look like a tattoo; this looked deeper, somehow, as if the skin itself was almost translucent, and the green was a three-dimensional thing living in the thickness of his skin.
But just when she thought being in his company was perhaps not so bad, he started trying to boss her around, and she hated being told what to do.
Previous Doms had known that obedience was just within a scene; outside of a scene they could forget about giving her orders.
Her submission had to be earned and negotiated for.
But this asshole was evil.
She hadn’t felt like eating that morning when she woke, with low-grade morning sickness robbing her of her appetite, but a few hours later it had passed, and the bastard was holding her breakfast hostage, doling out morsels of it to her as rewards for following his orders.
It didn’t help that she didn’t know his language, but with repetition she’d learned a few words.
She’d already figured out that dhavedad meant ‘come here’.
By the way he crooned veine groone and petted her head, she guessed it must mean something like ‘good girl’, and he’d pushed down on her shoulder, rearranging her limbs into a kneel, often enough that laft must mean ‘kneel’.
Or maybe it meant ‘sit’; she couldn’t be sure—apparently she was the human equivalent of a dog.
She hated that she felt like purring whenever she earned a veine groone.