Page 74 of The Commander

“You are not paying attention.” He sat her on her feet outside the truck. Opening the cab, he reached inside. Pressing something under the seat, a panel opened. He reached in and took out a tangle of belt sized black straps.

He held them up. Whatever they were made of, it glittered, reflecting the truck, the sky, and the world in tiny glittery scales. They looked a lot like his but lacked all the things attached to them. “You will wear this.”

Cara gave him a frown. Before she could ask what it was, he slipped the thing over her head, separating two of the straps over her shoulders. The ends dangled down her body on both sides. He fastened a belt at her waist—it was long and had to be looped twice—and another below her knees. It was much heavier than it appeared.

He lifted it and set it on her shoulders. Making sure it was seated to his liking, he tapped a strap and said something incomprehensible. Was that in his normal language? She gave him a confused look, but when he leaned down, he gripped her shoulders, lifted her to her toes, and gave her an unexpected kiss.

Cara blinked at him.

“I don’t have a good word for the harness in your language. Don’t try to take it off. It will protect you.”

Still stunned by his blatant affection, Cara didn’t have a chance to ask for more information before he was manhandling her again. Hands on her waist, he picked her up and sat her inside the truck, closing her in.

She watched him circle to the back, where the muzzle heads were. Her luggage was loaded with the other things as they exchanged words Cara couldn’t hear.

“Hello,” said a man from the back seat.

She turned to look. A thin, pale faced man wearing silver cuff restraints that pulled his arms behind his back regarded her with mild curiosity. Brackets had formed around his mouth, and his eyes had a bruised look. “So, you’re fucking one of them too.”

Twenty things ran through Cara’s head at the man’s accusation, not one of them was a good comeback. It wasn’t like Bastian was a good guy, like he’d changed into the world’s savior instead of a world invader after a few searing sessions of great sex. The human in the back seat looked like he’d been through hell and back again, tortured at the hands of aliens—tortured by Commander Bastian.

She snapped her head forward, trying to think of what to say back to him. Tomorrow, something snappy would pop into her head while she sat on the toilet. Right now, she had nothing.

Outside, the muzzle heads who loaded the truck were gone, returning to their daily work with surprising speed. The base looked abandoned. She could see the school, where she’d first been taken, and the closed doors of the other buildings and storage garages. It all looked unnaturally calm.

“Is it worth it? Giving up your humanity to whore yourself out to one of them?” the man asked.

“Speak respectfully to my mate. Our bargain does not give you familiarity,” Bastian said when he opened his door and slid into his seat.

“Is it the height thing? Is that it? My sister could never resist a tall guy. Didn’t matter how worthless he was,” the guy in the backseat said.

“Your sister?” Cara had to turn and look back at him.

The man shrugged his thin shoulders. His clothes didn’t fit, and it wasn’t just from sudden weight loss. They weren’t his. “You know, I still kinda wish your boyfriend had just killed me. This world has goneto hell. All the pretty girls are fucking aliens. Where’s the hope for a guy like me?”

“Do not talk to her. Talk to me. You should have answered my questions the first time.” Bastian started the truck, putting it into drive with the push of a button. It had a steering wheel, but the pads on the floor were flat, providing more leg room. Sleek and clean, it lacked thewhole slapped together with whatever we could find lookof other autos she’d ridden in.

“It’s hard to remember everything when your friend is dying,” the guy behind Bastian complained.

“You were holding illegal information on contraband power cells. Once I have all the information I need, I will kill you if you ask nicely,” Bastian said.

“Batteries. Old car batteries, not power cells. Not like that Corporation shit they made us use. I don’t suppose it matters now. If I had known you were offering a great deal like this, I might have said something sooner. You didn’t need to kill Jensen.”

“Jensen, your companion, was the other rebel. Yes, I did. He broke the law.” The commander announced the infraction as if it were the worst thing he could do. Since all his laws carried death sentences, perhaps it was.

They were together now. She wasn’t sure she could escape him, or that she wanted to escape him. But what if he had a law she didn’t know about, and she broke it? What was her future going to be like with such a dogmatic creature?

“You didn’t need to kill himlike that. And I don’t even think the other batteries are any good,” the prisoner was saying.

“Some of them had better be good, since the others have already been properly disposed of,” Bastian said.

“That wasn’t me.” Mackie shook his head in denial.

“No, I saw it done, but I won’t have any trouble punishing you for it, since you neglected to tell me the other information.” Bastian’s voice went low and dark when he spoke, causing a shiver down Cara’s spine. He was such a large male; his voice could hold a level of menace no human could match.

The man in back was trying to hold on to some of his own careless bravado, but Cara saw him flinch.

“What other information? You asked us where the rest were. You asked us why we wanted them. Jensen told you that. Screamed all of that with his last dying breath.”

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