Page 11 of Breed

She doesn’t beg for the life of her husband. She doesn’t get scared of anybody. She is the mistress of her domestic domain, and there is mess on her floor.

“Women should be quiet,” the man with the boots says. “Women should know their place. You were made to serve man, and man was made to serve the Galactic Prime. That is the natural order of things.”

There is a loud bang, and I hear my mother wail.

There is more red, but this time the red flows with little pieces of white flecked bone and squishy gray stuff. It all comes closer to me, a growing river of pieces and parts, things nobody should ever see. I know what it is, but I tell myself it is not what I think. I tell myself this is just another messy party. I tell myself it is all going to be okay, even as my mother’s wail cuts through my consciousness in a way I will never be able to forget. Her scream becomes part of me. Lives at the core of me. Makes me who I am.

I won’t mess up again.

I won’t.

Echoes of the past follow me into the future as I creep forward, coming closer and closer.

“They have a human. I have a human.”

I pause as I hear voices. The one who just said they have a human sounds like Shan. He has a very particular tone to his voice, a sort of careful elocution and simultaneous roughness. He looks like he should be stupid, but I don’t think he is. I sense a double cross, even at a distance. I hear a difference in his tone.

“She’s lucky you found her. We’re lucky you found her. We need to keep these humans under our control.”

“They keep leaving that ship. The one I’ve got is looking for the ones you and Thorn have,” Shan says.

My eyes widen. He’s talking to the big purple flying one. He’s led me right to the very saurian I needed to find. This is perfect. If I can hang back and somehow avoid being seen by Shan and follow Avel, I’ll be led right to Captain Raine, and then to Captain Sullivan.

“Bring her to us,” Avel says.

“I can’t do that. Wrath is already suspicious. He wants me to mate her. He wants me to breed her.”

There’s a pause. “Why?”

“He’s sick. She’s half my size. I’d destroy her if I tried. I think it’s a test.”

“Why would he be testing you? Don’t worry about the human. It’s been proven twice they’re more than capable of mating with our species. I’ve some personal experience in the matter.”

I know very well that he has had experience. I’ve seen his experience in high definition. If he is the alien I think he is, then he has proven beyond anybody’s doubt that saurians can mate with humans. Raine seemed to be enjoying herself very much for the split-second I allowed myself to watch her writhe in an aerial embrace, impaled on his cock in an unseemly fashion.

“What if she doesn’t want to be mated?”

“That’s a different problem,” Avel says. “But I don’t think it will be the problem you imagine. The human females we’ve encountered so far become very sexually willing, voracious even, when properly dominated. What is her name?”

“I don’t know.”

I clap my hand over my mouth to stifle my offended gasp. I just told him my name not ten minutes ago. He didn’t listen to me. I suppose he told me he didn’t care at the time, but still, how rude. Now I come to think about it, everybody I have encountered on this planet so far has been unspeakably rude.

It’s obvious to me now that Shan has a lot on his plate. He’s clearly double-crossing Wrath in some way, and he’s clearly linked to the alpha. This is good information for me to have, and it’s intelligence the Mare doesn’t have yet either. I file it away mentally for safekeeping, and a time when it might come in useful.

“Mating her should probably start with knowing her name. They all have one.”

“Maybe.” There’s a shuffling sound as he moves back toward the passage. “I don’t want to leave her alone for too long. She’s terrified. Timid. Absolutely hopeless.”

Well, that’s insulting. It is also inevitable, I suppose. You can’t be underestimated without also being thought very little of. The way he’s speaking, I can tell he doesn’t want to ravage me. He probably thinks I am a very strange, fleshy little creature. Attraction between species is a very rare thing. Most aliens, even sentient ones, never mate outside their kind. The bits don’t usually fit, and even if they do, the chemistry isn’t compatible, or the mating styles don’t mesh.

But we’ve already seen evidence that saurians and humans can fuck. Raine fucked the one that flew. We all saw the footage, even though we knew we shouldn’t watch. It was hot. He was so powerful. He rippled with every thrust, his scales moving with his muscles. That footage was only a few seconds long, but it is absolutely seared into my mind.

But I am not like Raine, or Sullivan. I am not tall and captivating. I do not draw every eye when I enter a room. Most of the time when I enter a room, nobody notices. I used to be proud of that. Suddenly, I’m not. Suddenly I wish I was a bolder, more beautiful woman. I wish I had a more incandescent personality.

“I would be afraid if I were her too. She is in the hands of the planet’s most notorious criminal. Wrath.”

“She’s not in Wrath’s hands. She’s in mine.”

---