Page 33 of Soliv Four
“They sold us to that fake matchmaking service, and they sold us to this prison. We thought we would be sold in an auction, but they brought us here. I was scared to death in that hunt. I fought D’aktan until he kissed me.” W’lena said. “After that, I couldn’t get enough of him.”
“’Cause they drugged us with a sex drug, so we would fuckanybody. But Tomak came along before I made a huge mistake,” said Angie.
“It hasn’t been as bad as I expected,” said Ri’atee. “Coraz is… a good mate.” She laughed, her cheeks turning a pale blue.
Angie and W’lena chuckled too.
“I just wish there was more to do,” Ri’atee said. “Coraz training every day, and I have to go with him because we can’t trust any other males not to break into our quarters while he is working out.”
“That’s why I train with Tomak. Today, I am glad I do. Before I left Earth, I would never have lasted for this hike through the jungle,” said Angie. “I am learning to fight, too. Those other brutes won’t hesitate to put hands on you if they think they can get away with it. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Yes, we heard.”
“It was stupid.”
“Coraz said you would be punished. Were you?”
“Yes.” Angie looked down at her water bottle as her cheeks heated at the memory.
Both Ri’atee and W’lena gasped.
“What did he do?” W’lena whispered. “Did he beat you?”
Angie sighed, knowing she was blushing even more. “It was a spanking.”
The other two females frowned.
“I’m not going to forget that any time soon.”
“A spanking, they hit you here?” W’lena indicated her buttocks.
“It’s kind of hot, really.”
Both Ri’atee and W’lena giggled while blushing.
“It can be a game, too,” Angie added. “But back to working out. We need to be as strong as we can be for ourselves and them. Your males can teach you like Tomak has been teaching me. Just ask them.”
“It would be better than being bored,” Ri’atee agreed, and W’lena nodded.
“With any luck, maybe this ship can get us all out of here,” Angie said.
They talked a while longer about the lives they had before they all landed there. Where Angie had no prospects, both Ri’atee and W’lena would have had marriages arranged for them. That was the only promise Many Worlds Matchmaking had kept.
They all had mates, and Angie could see that Ri’atee and W’lena cared for their mates as she did Tomak. They were still talking and laughing together when Tomak and Emon emerged from the ship, and the door whooshed closed behind them.
The four men and three women looked up expectantly for their assessment.
TWENTY
“Well, we aren’t leaving any time soon, but I think we can fix it if we can find the parts we need,” Emon announced.
“How are we going to do that?” J’garin asked. “We’re soldiers, not starship mechanics. Did you see any parts brokers on the way out here? I didn’t.”
“No, but I have this.” Emon held up the tablet he took from the ship. “It has the repair manual for the ship. This is not the only ship that crashed in the jungle. The scanner in this tablet has located six of them.”
“We still have a few spans of starlight left, so we will split up and check some of them out.”
Emon ran through the list of things they would need to fix the ship. “Our biggest problem will be replacing the cracked crystal.”
