Page 56 of Kidnapped By the Beast
Lexi opened her mouth, desperate to explain.
“Wait—no! Please, Your Honor, you’ve got it all wrong?—”
“Silence, off-worlder!” The Magistrate’s thunderous voice cracked through the echoing chamber. The words seemed to vibrate in her bones. “I do not know how you conduct yourself on your primitive planet, but here on Bio-Terius Centra, luring innocent men with your body and then striking them down is a crime!”
Lexi’s stomach dropped.
“But you don’t understand!” she cried, her voice breaking. “I didn’t know green was your…your hooker color, okay? Nobody told me! I haven’t even been here a week! I didn’t mean to ‘lure’ him!” she protested.
The Magistrate’s four eyes blinked slowly, magnified and cold through the spectacles.
“A likely story.”
“It’s the truth!” she pleaded, twisting against the officers’ iron grip on her arms. “I swear. I wasn’t trying to trick anyone—I just liked the color! Look at my eyes!” She jerked her chin up, hoping the green would back her up. “I thought it would match my eyes—that’s all!”
“Pathetic,” the Magistrate said coldly. His deep voice reverberated from the carved stone. “Every harlot has her excuse. You are no different.”
Lexi’s heart fisted in her chest as panic and rage tangled inside her.
Oh my God—he really thinks I’m lying. He’s not going to let me go!
The Magistrate raised one long-fingered hand, his golden cuffs glinting in the dim light. With a swift, cutting motion, he passed judgment.
“I sentence you, harlot, to one hour in the sexual stocks with a officering device implanted in you in the public square. Perhaps public discipline will teach you not to attack innocent men who merely wished to partake of what you so clearly offered.”
Lexi’s knees nearly gave out.
“The sexual what?! What does that even mean? Please, you can’t?—”
But before she could finish her sentence, the officers hauled her backward.
“Enough talk—you’ve been sentenced,” one growled harshly. “You can’t take any more of the Magistrate’s time.”
“No—wait! Please!” She struggled, but their grip only tightened as they dragged her through the doors. “I didn’t know! You have to believe me! I’m not a prostitute—er, harlot! I’m not?—”
The heavy doors slammed behind them, closing them out of the vast chamber. And Lexi, heart hammering, realized she was being dragged toward something that sounded a whole lot like public sexual humiliation.
Oh God. What have I gotten myself into?
And how was she going to get out of it?
29
LEXI
The officers dragged her down another stone corridor, narrower and darker than the grand hall. Gone was the faint perfume of incense—here the air smelled metallic, sharp, and ugly—like rust and blood. Their boots clanged on the stone while her bare feet slapped against it, echoing too loud in this dark, foul place.
They shoved her through a heavy iron door, and Lexi’s breath caught.
The chamber beyond was no courtroom—it was a dungeon. Rows of racks lined the walls, displaying devices she couldn’t mistake for anything but instruments of torment.
Her eyes darted from one to the next in horror.
There were iron collars, their insides studded with teeth meant to bite into a neck…straps lined with spikes or hooks, designed to pierce skin when tightened. Wooden paddles studded with glowing stones crackled faintly—clearly they would shock anyone they struck.
And then there were the phalluses. Lexi’s eyes went wide when she saw them.
Dozens of devices were lined up on a wooden shelf. There were rods of glass with veins of light running through them…dildos of metal engraved with raised runes of punishment…implements as thick as her wrist with twisted ridges so exaggerated they looked like drill bits. Some were barbed…others glowed red-hot as if forged in fire.
