The Breeding Experiment (Veslor Mates Book 3) Page 4

  “We’re going to be okay,” she crooned to him. “Just open your eyes.”

  Had they seriously hurt him? The small cut on his head had already stopped bleeding. The skin had split a little, but it wasn’t bad. He might need a stitch or two, but she had no way to do that. Her medical knowledge wasn’t vast. Having two brothers had necessitated basic first-aid lessons, though. Boys were always getting hurt.

  She ran her fingers through the thick hair on the top of his head. One of his pointed ears twitched when the side of her thumb brushed it. She hesitated before gently exploring it. He had cartilage in his ear like a human, but it was as velvety-soft as his skin. Warm.

  She studied his face. He wasn’t nearly as scary looking while sleeping, with his features relaxed. His lips were fuller than hers and his nose a bit longer. Even his eyelashes were thicker and fuller than a human’s. She stroked his cheek, liking the feel of his warm skin.

  “I’m here, Gnaw. Please wake up.”

  He slept on.

  She kept touching him, hoping to rouse him from sleep by playing with his black hair and caressing his cheeks. Her thoughts frequently went to her sister. She hoped the aliens weren’t hurting Becky.

  Depression and guilt came with that thought. She’d fled Radison to keep her little sister safe. Instead, she’d taken her away from one danger and right into another.

  * * * * *

  Gnaw woke but remained still. The last moments of his memory returned in a flash, and he strained all his senses.

  Soft, small hands were on him, and he could hear light breathing that wasn’t his own. He inhaled through his nose, identifying the scent as that of the female human from the shuttle. Darla was still inside his cell.

  Her fingers were buried in his hair above his ears, her tiny, dull claw tips gently massaging his scalp. It felt nice. Her other hand was near his jaw, rubbing against his skin lightly enough to almost tickle. He lay flat on his back, his head on something thin but softer than the rest of the surface under him. He inhaled again. The Elth scent lingered but it was faint.

  “Where was I…?”

  Darla’s low voice almost startled him, but he managed to control his body by not revealing himself to be awake yet.

  “That’s why I got us fleet jobs. I had to get Becky off that dratted planet.”

  “Where are they?” He tried not to move his mouth as he whispered.

  She froze briefly, then resumed running her fingers through his hair. When she spoke, she whispered back. “We’re alone but I think I see cameras. Are you okay?”

  He opened his eyes and sat up, staring around the room. They were still inside his cell. More like an exam room. He got to his feet, his chest and ribs aching from whatever they’d hit him with, but otherwise he felt fine. He also had a slight headache and he reached toward the source of the throbbing, feeling a tiny wound that had already sealed.

  “You heal super-fast. It was bleeding. It’s where your head hit when you fell.”

  He stared down at the female where she sat on the floor. She looked paler than before, scared, but she wore the same outfit. He didn’t see any damage to her visible delicate skin, but that wasn’t much. Her clothing covered most of her body. “Are you harmed?”

  “No. They just knocked us out on the shuttle with that white smoke, and we woke inside an empty sealed room with a glass wall.”

  He waited for more. She seemed to understand.

  “Most of the women from the shuttle, that is. The aliens admitted to killing all the older women and men, except for you. They call themselves the Elth. Have you ever heard of them? I haven’t.”

  He tore his gaze off her, studying the room again. The only weapon he could find was the tall standing structure he’d been strapped to. It was bolted to the floor, but he figured with enough strength, he might be able to rip it free and use it to bash through a wall. The exam bed looked too heavy and bulky to lift, and it was also secured to the floor with many more bolts. There was a small bathroom, but it only contained a seat for body waste.

  “Gnaw? Do your people know the Elth?”

  “Yes. They call themselves a scientifically motivated race. They live in what you call the eleventh quadrant. Some of our fighters have been hired to defend other planets against them. Elth are known to steal aliens to experiment on and train them to become slaves to do manual labor. They sometimes sell them to other aliens when they no longer have a use for their prisoners.” He walked over to the structure on the wall, taking in every inch of it. The restraints were solidly attached and looked difficult to remove. “What else have you learned, female?”

  “My name is Darla,” she said. “The Elth plan to force us to breed. They want to get their hands on children with our mixed, um…blood. They think it will make a child easier to train if half of it is human. One of the women taken from the shuttle is a doctor on Defcon Red. She told them you can only breed with a mate. At first, they planned to make all of us have sex with you to get pregnant.”

  Outrage filled Gnaw, and he turned his full attention on her.

  She flinched. “Is what the doctor said true? You can only produce babies with a mate?”

  It wasn’t exactly true, but he wasn’t about to admit it. They were capable of breeding without being mated; they simply didn’t. His people had purposely fed incomplete information when humans had demanded answers about their breeding habits, worried their grouping might impregnate human females on their fleet vessel by accident.

  Most races weren’t nosey enough to ask. Veslors had never mated with other races or created a child with females other than their own. At least…they hadn’t, until one of their trading males had mated to a human female after rescuing her. They had been the first. “Veslors mate to have young. Go on.”

  “We are supposed to, um, breed, and see if I’m your mate. Otherwise, they’ll kill me and bring in my sister to see if she’s a better choice for you.” Her voice lowered. “I took her from Radison to prevent her from being forced to have sex.”

  He held her gaze, curious.

  She glanced at his wrist, at him, back at his wrist, and then at him again. Her eyebrows rose. “Is there hope that it could happen?”

  The female was smart, and it caused him to smile. She remembered what they’d discussed on the shuttle. She wanted to know if his grouping could still locate them.

  He’d already tested his mental link from the implant in his head. The Elth would have assumed it was just his translator if they’d run scans. It was more. The connection was faint but active. Whatever had blocked it before wasn’t present anymore. His males would find him. He just didn’t know how long that would take. “We have hope.”

  She smiled back at him, revealing her smooth, tiny teeth. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  He heard a low hum, and then a voice spoke into the cell. “Begin breeding and mate the human, Veslor. We want your young.” The hum died.

  He stifled a snarl, glancing around for the source. He also spotted what appeared to be cameras in two locations. They were flat disks along the tops of two walls.

  All the Elth on the ship would die painfully for taking him and the humans. They thought they could force him to claim a mate, then steal his cub? He shook with rage. He’d personally tear them apart with his claws.

  Darla stood and slowly approached. Her eyes were a light blue, her hair white. She was a pale creature, delicate with her small bones and thin body. The brown outfit only made her paleness more stark.

  She stopped directly in front of him, inches between their bodies, and lifted her chin. Her face was oval-shaped and her skin looked soft. Her features were strange but attractive.

  “We need to, um…have sex.” Pink surfaced on her cheeks, and she licked her lips, appearing nervous. “I know this is going to be difficult and embarrassing—but I’ll do anything to protect my sister. It’s my job to look out for her. I’m older than Becky.” She lifted her arms and he noticed that her hands trembled. “I’ve done thi
s many times before, and while it’s awkward, we’ll survive.”

  He felt stunned at her description. “Awkward?”

  “Uncomfortable. It’s difficult to have sex when you don’t want to.” Her features tensed. “Just, um, turn your back and give me a few minutes to prepare. Then we can get this over with.”

  “You’re confusing me.”

  Parts of her face turned even pinker and she dropped her gaze, staring at his chest. “It hurts more if I’m not ready. I need to prepare my body a little, and then it should be fine. I mean, I hope so. You’re a big…man.” She lifted her chin and held his gaze. “We’re going to do this, Gnaw. We need to do this. It’s not my first time, as I said. I survived all those other times. We’ll do what we need to, for as long as it takes, if it protects my sister.”

  He cocked his head, trying to make sense of what she was trying to say. Then a suspicion hit. “You’ve been forced to breed before?”

  Tears filled her eyes but she rapidly blinked. “Not forced, exactly. It depends on how you see it.”

  Rage filled him yet again. She was a female. Who would do something like that her? “Explain.”

  She turned away, took a few steps, and seemed interested in staring at the opposite wall. “I told you that I needed to get my sister off Radison, and why. Didn’t you hear anything I said while you were lying on the floor?”

  “No.”

  “Shat. Okay. I’ll explain again. The colonists started out as a religious cult. Then we got a lot of visitors coming to our planet, like the fleet taking leave there. It became a vacation spot…but there were a few complaints.”

  She turned and faced him, anger in her eyes now. “Do you know what men want when they’re on vacation? Attractive women to have sex with. But Radison didn’t have any, because it’s against the law for our women to have sex unless we’re married. Our leaders realized visitors could make them wealthy if they made some women available, to keep them coming to our planet. They began picking certain ones. It’s not a choice. Women are chosen, and their new job is to have sex with visitors.”

  His rage increased. “They did this to you?”

  She shook her head. “I made a deal. Our greenhouse is inspected twice a year. The inspectors not only make sure we’re up to code and run things the way we’re required to grow quality food, but they get bonuses if they find any unmarried, attractive girls who are at least eighteen. Law keepers come to collect the ones chosen, who are forced to work in the brothels. Our families and friends become leverage against us. You don’t put up a fight, or your family pays. I’ve heard horror stories about fathers being murdered while trying to defend their daughters.

  “Six years ago, I turned eighteen and the inspector made me an offer. He said he wouldn’t turn me in—or my younger sister, when she turned legal age—if I’d let him touch me. You know…have sex.”

  Gnaw snarled.

  “My parents had tried to find me a husband before the inspector arrived, the year I turned eighteen, but I was still single. I made the deal. His name was Anthony, and he was old enough to be my father. His wife had died, and he said he was lonely. It was better than being sent to work in a brothel or risking Becky going there one day. At least he wasn’t abusive” She paused.

  Gnaw glowered at her, not saying a word.

  “Please don’t look at me like that. I was more afraid of what a bunch of men would do to me rather than just one. Especially when I found out what happens to women who work in brothels. Anthony kept his word by not turning in my younger sister three years ago, when she turned eighteen.

  “Four days ago, we were notified that Anthony was killed somehow, and a new inspector was being sent. I’m probably too old to become a brothel worker now…but my sister isn’t. The new inspector is from one of the founding families who still lead our planet. That means he makes a lot of money off the brothels, probably even gets to use them for free. There’s no way he’d make a deal with me to protect Becky from being sent to that place. I couldn’t risk it. It’s why I got us jobs with the fleet.”

  He remembered spotting the brothels on Radison. They hadn’t tempted him, but he’d seen many of the fleet members visiting. Were the males who paid for sex aware that the females had no choice but to work there? It sickened him.

  Darla drew him from his thoughts by touching his chest.

  “We need to do this, okay? There’s no choice. They caught us, this is what they expect, and we just need to survive.” She dropped her hand from his chest and touched his wrist, glanced at it, and then back into his eyes. “We’re in this together until things change. Have you had sex before?”

  He nodded. “With Veslor females. No one like you.”

  “Well, one of your men mated to a woman like me. We get news on Radison about what’s happening with the fleet and Earth. That’s got to mean our bodies are basically compatible. That’s why those jerks kidnapped us. They want us to give them a baby.”

  “I can’t do this,” he admitted.

  She paled. “Why not? Just close your eyes if I’m not attractive to you. Do you think Anthony was someone I wanted to be with? He wasn’t. I touched myself to prepare my body when I had to have sex with him. Touch yourself if that helps you get hard. We’ll turn our backs on each other, get ready, and then, you know…do it.”

  He gawked at her, stunned by just about everything she’d just said. “That’s not it. You’re attractive for your race.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I’m not aroused. I’m furious and stressed. Touching my rod isn’t going to help with either.”

  “Rod?” She glanced at the front of his pants, her face turning pink again, but then she stared up at him. “What turns you on?”

  He had no words. She’d stunned him again.

  “Tell me. How do Veslor women turn you on?”

  He cleared his throat. “They are aggressive, and they physically challenge us to a fight to prove we’re worthy protectors.”

  It was Darla’s turn to appear stunned. Her gaze traveled up and down his body. “Are they crazy?”

  “They are like me.”

  Her mouth opened. “Oh. You mean big and rough-looking?

  He nodded.

  “I don’t think that’s going to work for us. There’s no way I can take you down physically.”

  He nodded again. “I’m too angry. My body reacts to emotions if they’re strong enough.”

  She bit her lip. “You can’t perform under stress. Got it. That makes sense.”

  He paced the room, glaring at the cameras and snarling. He paused, closed his eyes, and used the implant in his head. The link was there to his grouping still. It remained faint.

  What was taking them so long to find him? They should be able to sense where he was. He just needed to stay alive until they came.

  And they would.

  Chapter Four

  Darla watched Gnaw pace, snarls tearing from him. She got up and walked to the exam bed, tired of sitting on the floor. The top of the flat surface was padded. It also came up to her ribs. The ship they were on obviously wasn’t designed to be human friendly. Even the toilet seat thing she’d found in the tiny closet had been set high enough that it had been difficult to use. She’d managed, though.

  The bed was even higher.

  “Um, Gnaw?” She looked over her shoulder at him.

  He paused, meeting her gaze. “What?”

  “Can you help me up here? I’m afraid if I try to climb, I might fall and crack my head like you did when they released you from the restraints. I don’t heal as fast as you do.”

  He approached, and she tensed a little when his big hands gripped her hips. He was able to lift her easily, dropping her butt on the padding. It was a relief after sitting on the hard floor. “Thank you.” She glanced at her legs, which dangled far from the floor.

  He backed off and began pacing again. She watched him, worrying. They were supposed to be having sex. The Elth didn’t exactly
seem like they had much patience. They had to be the worst alien race she’d ever heard of. The torture room proved it.

  Gnaw needed to be put in the mood. He said his women challenged their males to a fight. No way could she do that. It would be like punching, well…a really big guy. She wanted to ask more questions, but he looked as if he wanted to beat on the walls, rather than hold a conversation.

  How much different could Veslor men be from humans physically, in the downstairs department? She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience with sex. Not the regular kind, anyway. Usually, she got a message from Anthony when he was on his way to inspect their greenhouse. She’d go to her quarters to prepare her body, he’d arrive, she’d close her eyes and let him do what he wanted, and then he’d leave to perform the inspection.

  Once he finished his report, he might visit her again. Then he’d take his hover vehicle and go to the next job. Six months later, they’d repeat the same cycle.

  She tore her gaze off Gnaw and took in the exam bed. It wasn’t built only for taller beings, but also wider ones. She scooted back, pulled her legs up, and took off her shoes. Her socks went next. She dropped them on the floor and got to her knees, reaching for the fasteners on her pants.

  He might be furious—so was she—but neither of them had time to waste. She doubted their captors cared about their mental states.

  This was about their survival. That meant she needed to do something drastic to snap Gnaw out of his angry pacing.

  “What are you doing?”

  She froze, looking up to find Gnaw staring at her. He’d stopped pacing.

  “We need to have sex.”

  “I told you that I can’t.”

  “Yeah? Well, this isn’t about what we want, remember? I also don’t want to die. Did you hear me when I said they’d kill me if I refuse to do as they say, and then they’ll bring my sister in? When you won’t touch her, either, then she’ll die—and they’ll send in the next woman. None of that is going to happen because you and I will do this.” She knew she was blushing. “It.”