7
The holding cell had become Aiden's entire universe, a suffocating tomb of polished metal and dim, flickering lights that never truly slept.
Days had dissolved into an endless cycle of isolation and violation, and now, in the quiet hours before Xokax's inevitable arrival, Aiden found himself standing before the reflective metal wall that served as his only mirror.
He stared at the figure looking back, and for a long, horrifying moment, he did not recognize the man before him.
Who was this gaunt specter with hollowed cheeks, sunken eyes ringed by deep purple bruises of exhaustion, and skin stretched tight over protruding bones?
His once-muscular frame had withered under the relentless strain, shoulders slumped, ribs visible beneath pale flesh marred by fading bruises and fresh scratches.
His dark hair hung in limp, unkempt strands, greasy and wild.
The fire that had once burned so brightly in his gaze was reduced to a dull, flickering ember, barely alive amid the wreckage of his soul.
Aiden reached out a trembling hand, pressing his fingertips to the cold surface.
The reflection mimicked him perfectly, yet it felt like a stranger.
A ghost. A shadow of the dominant, straight, unbreakable man who had once controlled his own destiny.
"What happened to you?" he whispered, his voice hoarse from nights of screaming.
The breakdown had been building for days, a slow erosion that finally crested like a tidal wave of despair.
Every night, despite the hatred that still simmered in his chest, Aiden's body had begun to crave the touch.
The anticipation would creep in during the long, empty hours, his skin tingling at the memory of scaled hands gripping his hips, the thick invasion that brought both agony and that treacherous, unwanted pleasure.
He hated himself for it. He hated the way his cock would twitch at the sound of the door hissing open, even as his mind recoiled in revulsion.
I'm not this person, he thought, over and over.
But the evidence was undeniable. His body betrayed him nightly, arching into Xokax's thrusts, spilling his release in shameful spurts while tears carved tracks down his face.
The pleasure was no longer just an intruder; it had become a constant companion, twisting his identity into something unrecognizable.
He thought of Melissa. Desperately. He tried to summon the sound of her laugh, the bright, melodic peal that used to light up entire rooms. But it was gone.
Faded into a vague echo, blurred by trauma and time.
He reached into the hidden seam of his tattered pants and pulled out the small ring he had carried with him through everything, the simple band he had planned to slip onto her finger one day.
He stared at it, turning it over in his palm, but the memories associated with it felt distant, like they belonged to another man.
Another life. All that remained vivid, sharp as a blade, was crimson scales gliding against his skin, the low rumble of Xokax's voice, and that glowing red cybernetic eye boring into his soul.
"Who am I?" Aiden muttered at first, then louder. "Who the fuck am I?"
The question built inside him like pressure in a cracked dam.
He slammed his fist against the metal wall, the impact reverberating through the cell.
"Answer me! Who the hell are you now?" Another punch.
And another. His knuckles split, blood smearing the reflective surface, streaking the ghostly face staring back at him.
"You're not straight anymore! You're not dominant!
You're nothing but a toy! A hole for that monster to use whenever he wants! "
His voice rose to a scream, raw and animalistic, echoing off the walls in a cacophony of self-loathing.
"I used to be someone! I had a woman who loved me!
I controlled my own body! My own life!" Tears streamed down his face as he pounded the wall relentlessly, the pain in his hands a welcome distraction from the deeper agony ripping through his chest. "Melissa...
God, Melissa, I'm sorry. I can't even remember your laugh. What kind of man forgets that?"
He collapsed to his knees, forehead pressed against the cold floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
Great, heaving gasps wracked his emaciated body.
Snot and tears pooled beneath him. He was a puppet.
A plaything. A broken vessel stripped of every pillar that had defined him, his heterosexuality, his dominance, his autonomy.
Xokax had consumed it all, piece by brutal piece, until nothing remained but this hollow shell that still, shamefully, yearned for the next touch.
Hours passed in that position. When the lights shifted to signal evening, Aiden did not move. He lay there, limp and defeated, as the door hissed open.
Xokax entered, his massive frame casting its familiar shadow.
The warlord paused briefly, sensing the change in the air, but proceeded as always.
He approached Aiden's prone form, hands reaching down to pull away the thin blanket and remaining scraps of clothing.
Aiden offered no resistance. No fighting.
No curses. No spitting defiance. He simply lay there, eyes open but vacant, body completely passive as Xokax positioned him onto his back on the bench.
The encounter that followed was explicit in its emptiness.
Xokax spread Aiden's legs, the thick head of his cock pressing against the already slick, abused entrance.
There was no preparation beyond the warlord's usual synthetic slick, but Aiden's body, traitor that it was, accepted the slow, deep penetration with only a faint whimper.
Xokax thrust into him, powerful hips driving forward in that familiar rhythm, stretching and filling him completely.
Aiden's cock hardened out of sheer conditioned response, bobbing against his stomach with each impact, but he made no move to touch it.
No bucking back. No cries of mixed pleasure and pain.
Xokax fucked him thoroughly, the wet sounds of their joining filling the cell alongside the slap of scaled skin against flesh.
He gripped Aiden's hips, angling to hit that sensitive spot inside that usually drew desperate moans.
Aiden's body reacted, clenching and leaking, but his face remained blank, tears silently leaking from the corners of his eyes.
When the orgasm built, it crashed over him without fanfare; he spilled across his own abdomen in weak pulses, a broken moan escaping his lips, but there was no fight, no fire.
Xokax noticed immediately. He slowed, then stopped mid-thrust, still buried deep inside Aiden's unresisting body.
The cybernetic eye whirred intensely, scanning.
"What is this?" he demanded, voice laced with something new, confusion, perhaps even unease.
He pulled out abruptly, leaving Aiden empty and leaking onto the bench.
"You're not fighting. Why aren't you fighting? "
Aiden stared up at the ceiling, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "What's the point? You're going to take what you want anyway. I might as well lie here and let you. Get it over with."
The silence that followed was heavy. Xokax stood there, his massive chest rising and falling, the glowing red eye flickering erratically.
For the first time, the warlord looked unsettled.
He stepped back, adjusting his clothing with mechanical movements that seemed almost hesitant.
"I don't want this. I don't want you broken.
I want you fighting. I want you angry. I want you alive. "
Aiden let out a bitter, broken laugh that scraped his raw throat. The sound was hollow, devoid of any real humor. "You should have thought of that before you raped me. Before you spent weeks turning me into this thing."
Xokax recoiled as if physically slapped.
His organic eye widened, and the cybernetic implant dimmed slightly.
He paced a short distance in the cramped cell, massive hands clenching and unclenching.
"I didn't... I never... I thought you were a slave.
Property. In my culture, in my wars, this is what conquerors do with prizes.
I thought that's what this was. I didn't know it was...
I didn't understand the depth of the damage. Humans... your minds are different."
Aiden turned his head slowly, staring up at the towering figure.
For the first time, beyond the monster, he saw a flicker of something else.
Genuine confusion. A hint of guilt cracking through the armored exterior.
This creature, for all his power and calculations, had not truly comprehended the human cost of his actions. It was almost pathetic.
"You're a complete idiot," Aiden said, his voice still flat but carrying a faint edge of disbelief. "A fucking idiot."
Xokax stopped pacing. He looked down at Aiden's broken form, something like regret shadowing his features. "I'm beginning to realize that," he admitted quietly, the words heavy in the confined space.
The warlord did not touch him again that night. Instead, he retrieved the blanket and draped it over Aiden with surprising care before leaving the cell. The door sealed, leaving Aiden alone with his fractured thoughts.
He lay there for a long time, staring into the void.
The breakdown had stripped him bare, exposing the raw nerves of his shattered identity.
He no longer knew who he was, not straight, not dominant, not even fully himself.
But in Xokax's unexpected reaction, a tiny crack had appeared in the armor of their nightmare. A hint of understanding. A beginning.
Despair still clung to him like a shroud, but somewhere deep beneath the rubble of his soul, a faint, fragile spark of something new stirred. Not hope, exactly. But the possibility of something other than endless violation.
The road to recovery, if such a thing even existed, would be long and painful. For now, Aiden closed his eyes and let the tears fall silently, mourning the man he had been while wondering, in the quietest corner of his mind, who he might yet become.