Page 7 of Her Alien Guardian

Frankly, I felt more concern for my crew, since I had, it seemed, chosen to deprive them of the opportunity to lead the victory tour the rest of the fleet were currently doing around Vion Prime.

“Sir,” came my first officer’s voice through the comm in my ear, “High Command is asking for an ETA. They say they can hold off on initiating the final barrage for fifteen minutes, but no more.”

“Thank you, Mero,” I replied, just as the naked girl who refused to tell me her name almost kicked her way off my shoulder and onto the deck, almost certainly acquiring an injury as her sweet but fragile body met the hard surface. “Tell them we’ll be there.I’m bringing back a survivor from the Vionian ship. I’ll be across to thePrincein two minutes.”

“Thank you, sir,” Mero replied. “Will do.”

I heard in his matter-of-fact, compliant tone, as I often did, only the tiniest note of his ongoing exasperation at serving under the only alien captain in the Magisterian starfleet. With just three known non-humans in the entire galaxy, and the other two not even interested in commanding a military vessel, I could practically hear Mero thinking, why did he have to end up as first officer to the blue giant?

We had designed these bodies as a mixture of basic human anatomy and alienness and manufactured them at an orbital cloning facility five standard years ago. We had wanted to keep the humans we met from worrying that we meant to pass unnoticed among them—that was where the blue skin had come in.

We had also designed them to give us the chance to explore a specific dimension of the human experience that had fascinated us. When, as members of the Collective, we had begun to study this new species who had spread so rapidly across their galaxy, we had discovered within their reproductive requirements and practices a particular mixture of sexuality and power. The three breakout entities—myself and my ‘brothers’ (as the humans inevitably thought of us) Beta and Gamma—had embodied ourselves in large, blue-skinned human male bodies as a way to exploresex with poweras we thought of it. Or, as the Magisterians to whom we had come first called it, dominance and submission.

I had fallen in love with one of the young women I had dominated, and settled on Magisteria. My brothers had set outto explore more of the human worlds, hoping to fall in love as I had done. As of the last time we had communicated, neither of them had found the right partner, but they had certainly enjoyed the search so far.

That communication had occurred a year ago, now; just before the outbreak of the Vionian Revolt. Sala and I had been away from Magisteria for nearly that long, aboard thePrince Hend.

My origin in a practically omniscient and omnipotent alien energy-species meant that I had certain skills and capacities that made me a valuable commander for a Magisterian military starship. The Magisterians certainly would have put down the revolt and put an end to the Vionian Empire without my assistance, but I did like to think they wouldn’t have done it quite as easily as they had.

So Mero’s exasperation with my eccentricities went along with his compliance—and his frequently evident gratitude for my service and my skills. If I wanted to spend a quarter of an hour rescuing a single Vionian concubine while the starfleet waited to destroy the palace of the unrepentant, cartoonishly evil emperor, I knew he couldn’t truly object.

The girl over my shoulder tried again to twist out of the grip of my left hand on her delightfully silken thigh. With a sigh, I tightened my grip and strode resolutely on.

“Hold still,” I told her again. “I don’t want to make you, but I will if I have to.”

Tessara

I ignored the alien captain’s words, continuing to thrash and kick as best I could in my awkward position. We had reached the airlock now, the seam where the Magisterian ship had forcibly docked with theConqueror of Bresla. As we passed through, I caught a glimpse of sleek, advanced technology that made the Vionian ship look like a child’s toy in comparison.

Suddenly, I felt Alpha’s massive hand connect with my upturned bottom. The sharp crack echoed through the corridor, followed by a stinging heat that bloomed across my skin. I gasped, more in surprise than pain—the swat had been firm, but nothing compared to the brutal beatings I’d endured at the hands of my Vionian masters.

“I truly don’t want to do this,” Alpha said, his voice tinged with regret. “Your poor bottom has clearly suffered enough already. But I can’t have you hurting yourself in your panic.”

Another swat landed, and then another. The rhythm was steady, methodical, so different from the frenzied beatings I was used to. Despite myself, I found my struggles weakening, my body responding to the familiar sensation of discipline.

“Look at these welts,” Alpha murmured, his free hand gently tracing the marks left by Jorg’s whip. “Such cruelty. You deserve better than this, honey.”

His words, coupled with the surprisingly gentle touch, sent a shiver through me. A small, traitorous part of my mind whispered again that maybe, just maybe, he was telling the truth. Maybe the Magisterians weren’t the heartless monsters I’d been led to believe.

But that thought brought with it a fresh wave of shame and confusion. If they weren’t monsters, then what did that makeme? What did it say about me that I’d found moments of twisted pleasure in my captivity? The conflict raged within me, each soft swat of Alpha’s hand seeming to chip away at the walls I’d built around my heart.

“Tessara,” I whimpered, my voice barely audible. “My name… but… please… stop?”

Alpha’s hand stilled at my whispered words, resting gently on my tender skin. “Tessara,” he repeated softly, as if savoring the sound. “A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.”

I felt a warmth spread through me at his words, unbidden and unwelcome. How could I let myself be swayed by such simple praise? And yet… there was something in his tone, a sincerity that tugged at my heart.

“Tessara,” Alpha said again, his deep voice resonating through his chest and into my body where I lay draped over his shoulder. “I need to know if you’re going to obey me now. Not out of fear, but because you’re beginning to understand that I truly mean you no harm. Can you do that?”

I hesitated, torn between the ingrained distrust that had kept me alive for so long and the growing sense that perhaps, just perhaps, Alpha was different from any man I had encountered before. His massive hand remained motionless on my bottom, neither threatening nor soothing, simply present.

As the silence stretched between us, I became acutely aware of our surroundings. We stood in a corridor of the Magisterian ship, its walls a smooth, pearlescent white that seemed to glow from within. The air was crisp and clean, carrying none of the acrid scents of battle that had permeated theConqueror of Bresla. In the distance, I could hear the faint hum of advancedmachinery, a soothing counterpoint to the chaos we had left behind.

“I…” I began, my voice barely above a whisper. “I want to believe you. But how can I know for sure?”

Alpha’s thumb began to trace small circles on my skin, the gesture oddly comforting. “You can’t know for certain, not yet,” he admitted. “Trust takes time to build. But I’m asking you to take a leap of faith. To give us—to give yourself—a chance.”

As he spoke, I felt something shift within me. It wasn’t a sudden epiphany or a complete change of heart, but rather a tiny crack in the armor I had built around myself. Through that crack, a glimmer of hope began to shine.

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