When the Universe Sings (Universe #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

I might die here.

The ventilation shaft pressed tight against my shoulders, warm enough to sting the bare skin of my palms as I inched my way up the incline before it leveled off.

A rumble vibrated through my bones, forcing the sweat dripping down my face to splatter into my eyes.

There was a chance I’d read the schematics of the ship wrong—after all, I’d only had a few moments to glance at it.

And if I had read it wrong, when the hidra-boost engines came to full power for the jump to the next quadrant, the only thing left of me would be the flame-retardant uniform currently squeaking across the metal.

I hadn’t anticipated this morning while I etched my four thousand and fifteenth mark onto the wall of my cell that I would end the day jammed into the ventilation system of a pleasure barge.

But as I had been seated at my work station, polishing the Uhkazant-metal coils used to repair the cooling systems for ships like this one, the universe had slid the moment I’d been waiting for into my lap.

Not that I thought such things were fated by the Maker. I didn’t believe in fate.

The pleasure barge called the Daskquah was bigger than the usual ships that docked.

In the cycles I’d been a prisoner on Ebyd III, I’d only ever seen personal crafts stop at the yeska space station that orbited its sister planet, Ebyd I.

But the pleasure barge had been out of options, given their cooling systems were almost depleted and the Louxurian male who had stumbled from the ship to do his mistress’ bidding had been covered in a sheen of lavender sweat.

I had always been nimble, quicker than my counterparts in the cell block.

When we had been brought in to replace the coils in the ship’s utility bay, it had been simple enough to shimmy up the connector tube and slip through two panels in the ceiling.

I had spared only a passing glance at Ryihan, my cellmate, whom I’d been bribing with half my meal portions for the better part of three cycles for this exact moment.

The Kyyhr female had shaken one of her three heads sadly before lifting a slim tentacle to slide the panel back into place behind me.

“Good luck, Juniper,” she had warbled.

Climbing was instinctual. It threaded through my veins, burrowed so deep into my bones I wasn’t sure if it was because I had spent the first fifteen cycles of my life in the trees of my home planet, or because of some long-lost part of my DNA.

But with each tug of my body up the thick tubes of the panel, bright lights pulsed in my mind, the memory of rough bark against my skin, the scent of the eusaw trees fresh in the air.

That was my last and only real memory of my home planet—the climb down to the forest floor one only took as a rite of passage on their fifteenth birthday.

I had been shaking, fearful of the thick bracken and wide turquoise and purple plants that clustered close to our home tree.

But everyone was afraid, Mother had said, touching my cheek as she cradled my sister in one arm.

I and the others I’d descended with were meant to climb to the very top of the home tree, dipping our hands into the white sap to leave our mark amongst our people.

But I had never made it. None of us had.

I shut my eyes tight against the memory.

The image of a male surrounded by flames burned against my lids.

My breaths came in short gasps as the narrow shaft leveled out.

I’d forgotten their names cycles ago, even their faces.

For the first few cycles I’d longed for home, for comfort, but it didn’t take long to realize those things were lost to me.

Now, I wasn’t even a name—I was a number.

Another cog in the wheel of the Federation’s cruelty and greed.

The vibration pulsed higher, heat rippling down the metal until I grit my teeth and pushed away the pain.

It was better to die here than on Ebyd III.

Better to burn to ash making a bid toward freedom than spend the rest of my days cleaning coils, brutalized for the guards’ amusement, slowly starving to death.

Another rumble, a stuttering jolt forward, and I slid backwards before the ship came to a lurching halt.

I shook loose strands of hair out of my eyes.

The hum of the engine was still loud enough I was afraid I was too close.

The metal beneath me quaked and blisters welled beneath my hands and forearms.

I fell with a sickening lurch as the bottom gave way, arms flinging out wide to stop myself, before I landed with a crunch on the hard floor.

“Maker,” someone cursed, the Universal language delicately accented.

“I knew it,” another muttered, closer than the other, and rough hands curled under my armpits.

A wheeze slipped through my lips and my arm swayed at my side in a nauseating way. I blinked, the world hazy and tilting, before the Louxurian male I’d seen scrambling off the ship earlier that morning came into focus.

His face was not unkind, though perhaps it was difficult for a Louxurian to look anything other than ethereal with their translucent skin and veins of gold. He looked at me sadly, a frown tugging down the corner of his lavender-tinted lips.

“How long?” he asked me, the accent making the words into something like a caress.

The tang of blood slipped across my tongue from the gash inside my cheek. But the male didn’t seem to expect an answer; he only shook his head before gesturing to whoever was at my back. “We’ll take her to the mistress. She will decide what to do.”

The other grunted, his strange gritty scent mixing with the scent of my sweat until my stomach clenched.

They tugged me out of the utility closet, stark metal walls giving way to an opulent hallway dressed in rich reds and laid with ornate woven carpets.

I blinked, unsure where to look first. The walls were draped in thick curtains obscuring the standard-issue doors and control panels.

“All handmade from Nusjili,” the male threw over his shoulder, gesturing at the rugs. “One alone took three standard cycles to create.”

It did not seem to matter to the male that he was holding a one-sided conversation.

The longer we walked the more he turned into a host, pointing out the different paintings or fine valuables on the ship.

Clearly it was a high-class pleasure barge, one wealthy Federation citizens would frequent to satisfy whatever urges they could not pursue within their everyday lives.

I had heard from the other prisoners a single hour with one of those pleasure yeskas could cost hundreds of thousands of credits.

The one pushing me forward did not do so roughly—they even took care not to jostle the arm I cradled to my chest. My white uniform was now streaked with the dust from the inside of the shaft and torn at the knee where it’d caught on a corner as I fell.

“Here we are.” The Louxurian paused before a gilded door nestled between two dark red curtains. Gemstones the size of a fist hung from the ties holding the fabric back, glittering in the warm light of the halo orbs floating overhead.

He pressed two fingers to a small indent in the metal before stepping back. Bowing his head, he clasped his hands behind him and took a deep breath. I only stared at the door as it hissed open, unable to quantify what waited on the other side.

If I had thought the hallway was luxurious, it was nothing to the room I was ushered into.

The entire floor seemed to be one large cushion, with swaths of fine linen hung from the ceiling and halo orbs bobbing every few feet with dim light.

Bodies writhed within the center of the room like one great beast with many arms and legs.

The sound of skin sliding against skin mingled with the music tinkling through the room.

The scent of sex and sweat was masked or ventilated enough that all I could catch was my own stench.

A few gathered called out to the male and I was surprised some even called out to me, reaching with glistening arms to pull me into their embrace. But I only stared before the one behind drew me out of the way, even as the male in front of me laughed.

“Later, Ronan,” he cooed, blowing a kiss to the group and pressing two fingers to the indent of another, simpler-looking door.

This room was filled with gentle music. Fabric still draped the walls, creating a space that felt somehow cozier than the one we’d just left, but the small seating area was simple in comparison with its handful of chairs and couches.

It was the dais that caught my attention, the short few steps that led up to a dark red chair gilded in precious stones.

The female who sat there scrolling through a data pad could have been one of those stones with her deep purple skin, a shock of white hair slipping over one shoulder. “Lyrace, what have you brought me?”

Heat crawled up the back of my neck before sliding down my chest. The female leaned forward, large breasts spilling out of the obsidian gown all but painted on her skin.

Strangely, my belly clenched as if in hunger, thighs shaking as slate-gray eyes flicked up and down the length of my sodden jumpsuit.

“A stowaway, mistress,” the male, Lyrace, answered with a bow.

The mistress hummed, leaned back and traced the curve of her bottom lip with the tip of her finger, her gaze trailing back to my face. “How long?”

I swallowed, the heat building in my veins almost unbearable. The aching in my belly slid lower and I pressed my thighs together, clenching my teeth, but I did not reply for fear a moan might slip out.

“Long enough that you are mostly skin and bones,” she answered for herself. “That you were willing to squeeze into a ventilation shaft and risk vaporizing the moment we jumped quadrants.”