Page 27 of Marked
Fucking fantastic. How was I so lucky to get such a pretty welcoming committee?
They moved toward me with a sort of slithering motion of their lower appendages, like a snake, only that much creepier. I curled my knees into my chest and wound my arms around my legs. I contemplated grabbing the bowl of porridge and throwing it in their faces. Not only would the food splattering into their eyes bring me a great deal of pleasure, but the bowl it was in would probably leave a nice shiner right in the middle of their oversized foreheads. The porridge was in a metal bowl, but there was sadly only one in my cage and three Ghengrills staring at me. The math didn’t quite work out, so I just enjoyed the thought of my rebellion as they came closer.
“What the fuck do you want?” I retorted. It was clear I wasn’t getting out of this cage on my own, so I’d have to think of something else. Maybe I could negotiate with these guys.
“You are the female Lupenii mate, yes?” one of the creatures clicked.
“How do you know English?” I asked in confusion.
“Some of us can speak several hundred languages. It’s not unheard of on Ghengra,” he shot back. Well, this one had attitude then. Noted.
“Ghengra?” I asked.
“Are all humans this stupid?” the one on the right asked.
“Apparently, yes. The few I’ve run into on Ghengra are quite dim. They’ve been mainly house slaves though. Many of themare mute, or their masters had their mouths sewn shut,” the one on the left answered.
Well, fuck. That was disheartening. These three probably weren’t going to be sympathetic to my plight if they were used to that sort of thing.
The middle one sighed heavily and turned his putrid yellow eyes back to me.
“Ghengra is the home planet of the Ghengrills. You’re a Lupenii mate on the cusp of your heat. We’ve delayed it with medicinal help for a short time so that you may enter it once we’ve reached Ghengra. You’re to be transported to my lab now, and I came to oversee the transfer myself,” he explained.
There was that word Lupenii again.
“What’s a Lupenii?” I ventured. They already thought I was dumb, so why not lean all the way into it. I didn’t care what they thought. I was stronger than that.
“Unbelievable! You had a Lupenii male mark you, and you didn’t even know he was a Lupenii?” the Ghengrill with attitude answered.
“You mean Alaric is a Lupenii?” I pressed. I had my suspicions, but now I wanted the Ghengrills to confirm them.
“Yes,” the one on the left replied, clearly exasperated with my lack of intelligence. He took a syringe out of his pocket and capped a needle onto it, before sticking it into the vial of liquid he’d taken out of the crate. He turned his eyes on me. I’d never felt smaller and more like an animal than I did then.
“You will come with us either willingly or with betapharketamine pumping through your veins. I hear it’s very unpleasant for humans,” he spat, and I stilled.
“How unpleasant?” I questioned, narrowing my eyes toward him.
“I hear it makes them feel like their insides are boiling. That your brain is rupturing inside your skull. That tiny little fractures are splintering your delicate human bones. Something like that. It’s just what I’ve been told,” he replied rather nonchalantly. It was almost as if he was daring me to fight just so he could inject me with it, like he wanted an excuse to hurt me.
Yeah, I was good with not getting that injection.
“I’ll come with you,” I answered. If I wanted to get out of here, I had to know more about where I was. Even if by some miracle I could fight off these three, I could escape out of this room and be lost on a spaceship. Hell, I could be even more fucked when I ran into more of them out there. I had to weigh my options before I came up with a grand plan to get the fuck out of here and back home.
“Good. That would be best,” the middle one replied. He may have attitude, but he wasn’t the worst of the three. Clearly. He swiped his badge in front of my cage, and it clicked open. He stepped back and beckoned for me to come out, which I did begrudgingly. He cocked his single eyebrow at me with even more attitude, and I decided that was what I was going to name him. Attitude. I’d call the one with the needle Needle. Simple.
“I still think we should muzzle her. Humans are known to bite,” the third one said, but Attitude shook his head.
“You’re going to come with me, human female, and you aren’t going to make a fuss, are you?” Attitude asked me expectantly.
“I’ll come without a fight,” I said, watching the other two warily.
Needle took a step toward me, and I moved closer to Attitude instead. He seemed to be the only one not wanting to cause me a great deal of pain, so I was going to stick with him. I mean, beggars can’t be choosers, right?
“Good. Give me your wrists,” he instructed.
Without any other options, I did what he wanted. He took my hands in his, and I noticed that he only had four fingers. He took a button from his pocket and when he pressed it against my forearm, it popped open and a thick band of silver metal wound around both wrists. Then a long lead appeared from the center of it, and he took it in his hand.
I’d been cuffed and leashed. Like a dog. Perfect.
