8. Hello Again

Iam wearing a very pretty floral dress, sitting curled up on a cushion in front of Emrys, who sits on the valker throne with a casual ease that I am enjoying seeing in him. He is so much more relaxed these days. Time is passing in a languid sort of way now. After all the chaos of the chase and the homecoming, we are all adjusting to our new roles.

Atlas is nearby, not on a throne, but in a chair large and ornate enough that it may as well be one. The valkers have extended him great hospitality, and a kind of honorary royalty.

"My liege, a barbarian craft has just landed," Aristo announces. "Would you like us to assemble an escort or an offensive force?"

We all look at one another. Atlas is back in his human suit, and I can see him considering whether or not to take it off so he doesn't have to come bursting out of it later. I do like that he wears the human suit for me, even if he insists on wearing an actual suit with it. He's an old-fashioned man with old-fashioned values, square jaw, blue eyes, dark hair slicked to the side. On a superficial level, he and I look like we stepped out of an ancient human television show about men who do marketing and women who are stuck married to them. We look civilized and nice, and not at all like heinous, dark creatures.

"Escort the barbarian in," Emrys says. "We've been wondering where he got to."

It takes a few minutes, but Kronos comes striding in. He is alone, not needing the backup of a retinue. He is taller than I remembered, and hotter than I remembered. His golden hair flows like a magnificent masculine cape over broad shoulders, and his eyes go right to me as he enters our little royal love chamber. I feel a bolt of connection and a flash of yearning. He is so beautiful and he is so good, and he is about to be so disappointed.

"You are so laughably late to this party, barbarian. Where have you been?" Emrys' lips twist with amusement as he asks the question that is on all our minds.

"I stopped to offer aid to the various creatures harmed along the way," Kronos says. "You have left a trail of destruction light years wide in your wake. I helped board up the window at Owned Mates, and then of course I had to help settle the crowd on the pirate station where our mate shot someone in half. There was so much trauma. I have promised she will never return. And then, of course, I had to give the blue alien a proper burial. As for the mess on this planet…"

"Are you a barbarian or a cleaner?"

"I am a righteous spirit," Kronos says. "I exist to right wrongs."

"Then you are in the wrong place and looking for the wrong girl," Emrys laughs. "This one was broken from the beginning. Criminal, murderous, desperate, entirely without moral compass…"

"What is she eating?"

Kronos is staring at me with horror in his beautiful gaze. I realize too late that I was chewing my fingers. And when I say my fingers, I of course mean the now well-cooked fingers of Sheriff. The bones and gristle make for a good teeth-cleaning snack and help me control my craving for fresh flesh.

"The last time I saw her, she was consuming only chocolate and ice cream. What has happened?" I see the monster I have become in Kronos' gaze. He is looking at me with an expression of borderline disgust and confusion, trying to come to terms with things. I put my hand and what remain of Sheriff's hand behind my back. I don't like feeling guilty. It's a rare feeling for me, and I like to think I've saved myself from it. Once you free yourself from guilt, you're free from practically everything forever.

"Emrys happened," Atlas says. "He turned her into the magnificent creature you now see before you."

"The homecoming sacrifice has this effect on some weaker creatures," Emrys says. "She has the appetite of a valker now. She requires living flesh. It's a small price to pay for her continued survival, no?"

Kronos frowns. "But I need a mate to bear my young. And I purchased her. You had no right to turn her into a flesh-eating beast."

Emrys leans back in his chair.

"What is it going to take to buy you out, barbarian? We bear you no ill-will, but we would happily tear your throat out. There is no chance of this female ever being yours. You are too weak for her."

"I am not weak," Kronos says. "Did you not hear me when I said I am here to right wrongs? I am not afraid of corruption. I will cleanse her of it. I will renew her."

Emrys' chuckle is one of deep amusement. "You can try, but I can assure you that you will be disappointed."

Kronos reaches down and picks me up, his hands beneath my arms. I dangle like a cat being held by a child, feeling extra long and extra inspected as he holds me up to his face so he can look me dead in the eyes, his nose right against mine.

"I also own you," he informs me. "I purchased you just as the others did. They may have had their way with you, but I will make you just as much mine as they have made you theirs."

I half expect Atlas to come bursting out of his skin at that announcement, but I think he and Emrys have a certain respect for this massive barbarian and his shining electric weapon.

"You won't want me once you see what I'm like."

"I've seen what you're like," he says. "I've seen the aftermath of multiple encounters with you. You leave a trail of destruction wherever you go."

"A lot of that destruction isn't mine. It belongs to these two, one way or another."

"They are bad influences. I will be a good influence. You need someone who will take proper care of you. Someone who will give you a wholesome experience."

I start giggling as the barbarian claims to give me a wholesome experience. My mirth is echoed by Emrys.

"Admit it, Kronos. You want to be balls deep inside her breeding hole."

"I'd prefer if you didn't speak to our mate that way," Kronos says, his tone even, but his voice holding a note of intensity that Emrys should probably heed.

"Agreed," Atlas says. "Our mate deserves respect, no matter what she does."

Emrys makes a snorting sound but does not outright disagree with the others. As king, he is a much more relaxed creature than he was prior to his homecoming ceremony. He no longer has anything in particular to prove. In fact, his need for me is more or less at an end. I suppose one might consider it interesting that he is keeping me around.

They all seem to have come to terms with the necessity to share. I suppose we've all come to terms with the situation, one way or another. I know I still have to make an escape at some point. I can't stay here. Not with Emrys, not with Atlas, not with Kronos, even with all his good intentions. I want to feel safe, but I know I'm not. The only true safety I'm going to have is the safety I'll have on my own, far away from any creature who wants to use my womb for their personal production purposes.

"Don't be afraid," Kronos says. "I won't allow any more twisted harm to come to you. You are going to be perfectly safe with me."

It's like he read my mind. Or maybe my fear is written all over my face. I was getting used to being a terrible little monster under Emrys' care, and a perfect lady in Atlas' eyes. I don't know if I'm ready to be whatever it is Kronos needs me to be.

"Don't take her too far, barbarian. She is not what she was, and she is not what you need her to be. She has taken seed from the spy, myself, and the scythkin. She has been brutally changed from her original form into a thing of our own making. You can twist her in your own way, but you will never be able to reclaim any innocence."

"You have to stop talking," Kronos says. "You are prompting me to the kind of violence I have been cleaning up after for weeks now. I want to look after this human. I want to give her my babies…"

"You are not giving her anything besides a burden in her womb," Emrys says. "Be honest. You want what the rest of us want, and you want to take what the rest of us want to take. You just don't want to think of yourself as a bad guy. You want to stay the hero while using her like a whore."

"ENOUGH!" Kronos puts me down and rounds on Emrys. "I am nothing like you. You are cruel for the sake of being cruel. You corrupt everything you touch. You cannot help it because of what you are, and I do not want to judge you for it, but do not claim that we are the same."

"There is nothing more pathetic than a villain who thinks he is a hero," Emrys rejoins. His posture is still languid and unbothered, but there is a spark in his sanguine gaze that tells me he is enjoying winding Kronos up. Emrys enjoys bringing others down to his base, brutal level. Atlas is immune because he is rather separate from it all, an entirely different kind of creature immune to this kind of manipulation.

"I am going to take my mate to my bed, and I am going to show her what it means to be loved properly. Once I am done with her, you will no longer have any hold over her, valker," Kronos declares.

"You are going to take the human you own to bed in order to mate with her in order to satisfy your own base desires, barbarian. We are the same."

"Stop saying we are the same."

"Stop arguing and carry her off."

Kronos glares at Emrys, and for a brief moment I wonder if he will not carry me off at all, but rather put me down and try to prove he is the better creature.

But he doesn't. He carries me off, just like a piece of property. I end up hoisted over his shoulder, staring back at Emrys and Atlas. Atlas has said nothing, done nothing. He was so protective to begin with, but maybe he has come to terms with the fact that I am a possession who must be shared. Maybe it is time I came to terms with that same revelation. My life is now a round of big aliens who have hunted me down and made it nearly impossible to escape, taking what they paid for from me installment by installment.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask Kronos the question as he lumbers around with me.

"To my ship."

Emrys and Atlas are going to let him take me to his ship, apparently. This feels like a trick or a trap to me. I'm surprised it doesn't seem like one to him. There's no way they're just going to sit there and let this happen. The fact that Kronos already has me outside on the volcanic plain and is actually carrying me away from the valker encampment without anybody stopping him feels very strange.

"I don't think this is a good idea," I say in an attempt to warn him.

"I think leaving you with those two is the worst idea anybody could have. Look at what they have already done to you. You are infected with a flesh-eating disease…"

"I think flesh eating diseases mean your flesh is being eaten by a disease, not that you like to eat flesh."

"Same thing," he says. "I am sorry. I should have fought harder for you from the outset."

"I've been fighting plenty hard for myself, don't worry. You buried one of these guys, remember?"

"You shouldn't have had to. I shouldn't have had to. This is entirely unacceptable. You should be cherished and kept safe."

"You don't know me, Kronos."

"It doesn't matter. Everybody deserves to be cherished and kept safe."

"Then why did you buy a mate?"

He carries me into his ship and settles me down inside the interior. Kronos is traveling alone in a ship that is clearly designed to carry a large number of people. There's enough space in the room he takes me into to hold a small wedding. The ship is well-appointed, but there are signs that Kronos doesn't like how it feels. He has a lot of barbarian mementos on the walls, shields and swords and a pair of warhammers, all buzzing with that strange current that I saw come to light outside Owned Mates. It's brutal, primal, and space age all at the same time.

Kronos begins pacing in front of me, his brow furrowed in a way that makes his handsome features all the more appealing for their solemnity.

"My world is dying. My tribe is dwindling. I need to breed. I wish I did not have to purchase a person to give me an heir, but I did. I chose you because your profile said you wanted a large family."

Did it? It probably did. It probably said all sorts of things. I wrote those profiles to appeal to the highest buyers. I know what aliens want human women for. The hole between my legs is one of the most prized portals in the universe at this point.

"I need you," he says.

"You need anybody with a working womb," I reply. "You don't need me. It would have been way easier to just buy another human. Surely Owned Mates has a money back guarantee. Or you could have done a chargeback. No matter how you slice it, chasing around the universe for me was unnecessary."

"I also want you," he admits.

"Why? You said you want a mother for your children. I'm a murderous, flesh-eating beast."

He stops and smiles at me with a broad grin that makes my heart skip a beat. "But you are cute."

I look at him with curiosity. This doesn't make sense. Not even a little bit. I am not the only human woman for sale. I am not his only option. That means he's choosing me for some reason.

He likes that I'm a very bad girl. It's what they all like about me. Either that, or the fact that they've all had to compete for me has made me seem more desirable than I am. That could be it. It would be stupid, but it could be it.

I have been just as addled by this experience. When I started, I knew what I was doing. I was escaping. I was making a better life. I was doing what I needed to do in order to survive and to protect… I was doing what I had to. Now I"ve been sacrificed. I've been infected. I've been defiled so many times I no longer remember what it felt like to be pure in any way.

But he still wants me.

"I don't believe the universe makes mistakes. I believe you were put in my path for a reason. I believe I was put in your path for a reason too."

I look at this handsome, earnest, apparently nice guy with all the strength in the world, and I know that my attraction to him is preordained. I was made to want to fuck this guy and have his babies. He was made to make me want him. The universe is playing with us like two whittled dolls it made just to amuse itself. That's according to him.

I have to believe in something more than that. I have to believe that I have choice, and that my fate is mine to determine. There is more at stake than just my freedom. There is everything I have ever suffered, and everything I have ever wanted to be.

I feel shy with Kronos, which is wild as I have been with Emrys in the most public and defiling of ways. By now I should be beyond shame. But I am embarrassed, because I know what I am. I know what the others do to me. Kronos almost seems too sweet and good and proper to be with me.

"Why are they letting you do this?"

"I have claim, and they know it. None of us wants to go to war against one another. Emrys is an ass, but I have been given safe passage here. And Atlas, he is a scythkin. He is used to sharing with a brood."

"He didn't want to share before…"

"This is a smaller, proven group, I imagine. Sweet of you to consider your other mates' feelings. You are worried about what they think, when it is your own tender body which is on the line."

Kronos makes love sweetly and tenderly. He holds me close and he kisses me, and he treats me the way a woman should probably be treated in a universe where she is not a commodity being used for her body.

It is strange to be treated this way, especially when I know what darkness lurks in my blood, but I let him take me, because he owns me, and because Atlas and Emrys see fit to share me. Does he know that the spreading of my thighs comes at the behest of my dark masters? Does he know that his kindness is not nearly as much of an aphrodisiac as the fact that I have been sent off to be fucked?

There is something deeply twisted inside me, something shattered, like Emrys said. It was twisted a long time ago, though. I think I might even have been made wrong. Are all humans this way? I've never met another one. I wouldn't know whether it is normal to cling to the handsome, attentive, beautiful body of a new lover and cast my mind to those who wait to ravage and defile me once he has done spending his hopeful seed inside my deceptive womb.