Page 65 of Seven Oars
Ucai plucked Sassa from the group and shoved her down.
She was crying, her face red and swollen. Angry red marks decorated her fine skin wherever the pirates had touched her.
Ucai traced a sharp nail down her chest.“Stop mewling or I’ll carve out your nipple.”
Sassa gasped and fell silent. Her shoulders shook with soundless sobs. She looked tiny beside the pirates’hulking forms. So small.
Unlike some of the other women, Rosamma had never thought Rix aliens were hideous—until now. Hideous. Alien pigs.
They shoved Phex on top of Sassa.
He caught himself on his arms.
Esseh put his knee on Phex’s back, pinning him.
“Get ready.” His suggestive grin was lopsided from his stiff left cheek.“Start us off with a bang.”
The crowd erupted with laughter.
Rosamma didn’t want to look, but she refused to close her eyes again. Her heart bled for Sassa and broke for Phex.
Behind the pirates, she caught sight of Anske’s face, pale and drawn. With her tangled hair and wide eyes, she was a portrait of disbelief and suffocating fear, one Rosamma knew she mirrored.
Phex bucked and fought to rise, despite Esseh’s knee digging into his spine.
Sassa had ceased all movement and lay with her eyes closed. Only a slight rise and fall of her chest indicated she was still alive.
“Are they fucking yet? I can’t see.”
“No. And his dick isn’t out.”
Go, Phex,Rosamma cheered in her mind.
He wouldn’t rape Sassa. He wouldn’t rape anyone. He was one of the most principled men she’d ever met. And he didn’t even like humans, so there was little danger Sassa would send his sex drive into an uncontrollable spin.
She clenched her hands, as if holding the line with him.
Someone was looking at her. The attention was heavy, intrusive. She glanced about the Habitat, but didn’t notice anyone specific.
“How much longer?”
“Stop whining, Nud!”
“You shut the fuck up or I’ll break your teeth!”
Esseh motioned lazily.“Thilza, what happened to that vial of Father Zha-Ikkel’s charm spice?”
Thilza, still slumped against the wall, took a long drag from his smoldering pipe.“The one we rubbed on Tutti to get a hard-on?”
At the moment, Tutti was parked in the corner, its wig askew, its purple light off.
“We used it all up,” Massar said in a wistful tone. He came over and carefully straightened Tutti’s wig.
It didn’t help to make the mechanoid look any more like a real female. Of any species.
Abruptly, Xorris left the Habitat.
A lull fell in the room. The chair gave a loud squeak as Striker Fincros turned slightly. His obsidian eyes remained flat. His silence and poised indifference were somehow more sinister than the graphic violence of his minions.
