6. Old Friends

6 OLD FRIENDS

I do not mind accompanying Thorn. Some might call this an arrest, but I am not really arrestable. I have been in and out of his cells and such over the years. He can't hold me and he doesn't really want to. I perform a function in this city and we both know it. Removing me would lead to an almost boundless chaos. He needs me.

All Thorn has ever been able to do is attempt to curtail my rising power. Make sure that I do not unseat him. That is his worst nightmare and the nightmare of many. For the poor, downtrodden freaks of society to be in charge — they can imagine vividly what would happen then, and they don't want it to come to pass.

There's a fine line to be walked here, and he and I have been walking it for many years.

Once we are all safely ensconced in yet another underground secret location, which I am told is shielded so Lettie will not be able to get a lock on whatever tracking device happens to be installed in my mate, things really start to get interesting. It is comfortable and well-furnished, of course. There are a great many chairs and low lights and soft carpets. Thorn always did like his furniture. He likes anything that denotes status and finery.

More interestingly, the room also contains his mate.

The true captain of the ship is present, a pretty, effervescent woman with curling hair and a reckless grin. I can see how she led her crew, and I can also see how she got into a great deal of trouble doing it.

"Sullivan!" Allie cries out upon seeing her. The two of them hug tightly, the way old friends do. I notice, though, a slight condescension on the part of Sullivan. It is all in the micro-expressions. My mate looks thrilled and relieved to see her old captain. Sullivan, on the other hand, looks like she is being reunited with an old pet. Raine keeps her distance from both of them at first, but it is clear she likes a fight, and it is equally clear that she is not finished with what she started out at the bomb site.

Thorn, Avel, and I, do not have as much to contribute to this discussion as one might think. We are here to try to decide what to do about the woman who has the ship now, and the three women we have here are the key. Thorn and Avel actually excuse themselves at one point, to go have a discussion as to how to turn these events in their favor, I am sure. I elect to stay with the human women.

This room is rife with politics I do not quite understand, and I do not like that. I need to understand the delicate social strings that hold these women together in a web.

"I'm the only one here with a functioning brain," Raine finally snaps.

"What are you talking about?" Allie walks right into her verbal trap, metaphorically speaking. "Sullivan and I can think."

Raine doesn't address her response to Allie. Instead, she talks to me.

"They mess with their heads," Raine says. "It's what happened to Sullivan. She was chipped. Not really a person anymore. Just a walking automaton. Allie's one of them. They came from the same place. You, Mr Wrath, think you're mating a human. You're basically fucking a flesh Roomba."

"What is a Roomba?" I ask the question, ignoring her tone.

She smirks at her own cruelty. "It's an old mechanical device that used to clean domestic homes. It was something of a novelty."

"Explain the chip."

"It's mind control technology. It overrides the decision-making pathways and delivers instructions which the chipped follow. There used to be soldiers who had to be trained to carry out orders, but they'd do it imperfectly. Chipping was easier, and it made soldiers absolutely fearless. They wouldn't run away, no matter what. They'd send wave after wave of them into battle…"

A llie

I start to dissociate as Raine keeps talking, that cruel tone of hers prompting wave after wave of repressed memory.

Several years ago…

Weapon fire bursts around me. I keep running forward. The target is 800 yards. 700 yards. 600 yards and closing.

I don't know who the enemy is. I don't care. It doesn't matter. I am possessed of cool focus and steely determination.

I am not afraid to die.

I am not afraid of anything.

They can't shoot us all. There's not enough bullets. But they are going to try. I see them on the ramparts, guns flashing with red and yellow bursts. Very pretty. Very aesthetic.

It's less pretty where the bullets land. Arcs of blood, viscera falling into dirt. It happens in front of me over and over again, to my left and to my right, compatriots falling around me. One after the other, dropping in no particular order or pattern. Surviving this is a matter of luck, not skill. My reward for surviving will be to be given the chance to die again.

This happens time and time again.

They pin medals on me. They put me in the hospital and they upgrade me. When I am injured, they put new parts inside me. My bones are made of new alloys. My internal organs have been patched and put back together and replaced over and over. I am the ship of Theseus, no longer myself and yet unable to escape myself.

I'm still human, though every time I kill and nearly die, I lose some of it.

Then, one day, for no reason in particular as far as I can tell — it is over.

I am ordered to report to the medical ward, to a smiling professional woman who is old enough that she could be my mother. I have not served long, though I have served often. In one year, I have done over three hundred missions, so they tell me. They've all blended into one as far as I am concerned.

"Congratulations. You've earned retirement," she says. "Just a small outpatient procedure, and you're free to go. Take off your clothes and prepare for surgery."

I do as I am told, because there is no option other than to do as I am told. I would no more refuse her order than I would bite off my own head. It's physically impossible.

"What are you going to do to me?"

I ask the question as I disrobe.

"We're going to deactivate the implant, wipe your memories of any and all service-related material, and let you go free to decide for yourself what comes next. You're part of a program for those who have served well. We used to simply dispose of soldiers when they were worn down, but you're going to have a chance to really live."

The doctors smile at me as if this is a good thing, but all I can remember, all I know about myself is that I am a good soldier. I follow orders. That means I continue to follow orders even as they set about dismantling the one part of myself I am still sure about.

I wake up with an emptiness inside me. I feel as though I have been hollowed out, as if someone took a spoon to the inside of me. I don't remember a thing. I'm no longer in the hospital section. I'm in what feels like a cross between a waiting room and a shuttle stop. It's a transitional space. Nobody stays here. Impermanence is all around me, in the shiny decor and furniture just uncomfortable enough to make me want to get up.

A nice, professional lady who must be old enough to be my mother smiles at me.

"Feeling better? Good. Here you go." She hands me a little yellow packet.

"What's this?" I turn it over in my hands. It's not very large and not very heavy.

"It's a ticket for the shuttle, and enough money to get you started in a new life. Thank you for your service."

I am ushered out a set of sliding doors, and just like that, my life as I knew it is over. I have a feeling of loss, though I can't quite put my finger on why. I can't even remember what it was I was doing before this very moment.

"Excuse me?" I poke my head back in the doors, only to be greeted by a frown. I don't think we're supposed to go back. I think we're supposed to keep going.

"Yes?"

"What do I do now?"

Her smile brightens. "Anything you like. The shuttle is almost here. Bye bye."

T he shuttle comes, picks me up, and goes to a seedy little station on the outskirts of the sector. It's good, because accommodation is cheap there. With the money I've been given, I could live here for months. That's the theory. In practice, I'm robbed on my second night there and I get kicked out of the dive I was paying to stay in.

The third night, a male alien approaches me while I am sitting outside the building, trying to decide whether I will be able to survive the elements. The station gets very, very cold at night. I'm going to have to creep into the interior of something, or I'll almost certainly freeze.

"How much?"

"How much for what?"

"How much for that mouth?"

I am confused for a moment, then the lechery in his voice filters through my dense mind. He wants to pay me for my body, and that is lucky, because my body is quite literally all I have left.

W rath

"She was sucking dick on a shuttle stopover when Sullivan found her," Raine says, apparently unaware that I will quite happily snap her neck.

Raine is explaining a great deal, but I am going to need for her to stop saying it in front of Allie. I can see the effect it is having on my mate, the way her face is crumpling, her eyes taking on a tearful hollow expression.

"That's why we kept her in the closet. That's where you keep keep the machines and tools. We tried to use her for what she was made to do, but every time we put a weapon in her hands, she'd freak out. They must have broken her head good before they released her. She's no use to anybody."

"Shut your mouth," I snarl. Raine was one of the captains, but as far as I can tell the ship has had a total carousel of captains. Everybody gets a turn.

She ignores me, because she is made that way, and arrogant enough to think I will not do terrible things to her if she does not listen.

"It's why Lettie used her as bait. She's not a person. She's nothing more than a…"

"Finish that sentence, and you will regret it. Avel being your mate will mean nothing. If you further hurt my mate's feelings, you will suffer."

"You don't get it. She doesn't have feelings. She looks like a person, but she's not. Her brain's been tampered with. Probably why you like her."

I pick Raine up. She is taller than my mate, but she is not nearly big enough to resist me. I throw her out of the room, quite literally sending her flying into the hall with no concern for how she might land. I shut the door behind her, assuming she will run crying to her saurian mate. I never imagined I would ever feel sorry for Avel, sadistic executioner that he is, but I cannot imagine what it must be like to have to tolerate that creature.

When I turn back to Allie, she is looking at me with wide eyes.

"Oh my god. I can't believe you just did that. She was like a rag doll," she laughs, stunned.

"Did you put hands on my mate!?" Avel comes storming in, furious, Thorn close behind him.

"If you were listening, you know why. I need a private space for my mate and me. Recent revelations need to be processed. Your mates seem to think that mine is a target for bullying. They are wrong. And your mate, Avel, is fortunate to have merely been expelled from this space."

Thorn steps between us. "I think some separate spaces are a good idea," he says. "Why don't you go through that door," he says, indicating one of the doors on the west wall. "It's a private bedroom. We can all calm down and think about what we are going to say to one another. And perhaps, anybody who makes matters worse, rather than better, can be handled."

His tone is reproachful of Avel, not me. I can easily imagine Raine having caused issues before now. I bet Thorn is ready to see that wench whipped until she cries. I would certainly appreciate the sight.

A llie

I get swept up and away into a nice private suite with Wrath, rescued from a horror of a social situation. To say I am grateful is an understatement.

Aside from the day Sullivan pulled me aboard the ship, I have never had anybody defend me this way before. Wrath does not tolerate any cruelty toward me, under any circumstances.

I feel warmth of a kind that settles in my belly and then spreads outward, outward all the way to my fingertips. His words make me feel enveloped in a protective layer I've never had before, and his actions… they make me want to get on my knees for him.

"You're the hottest…" I trail off, because I am so damn turned on, but also so very sad and emotional. I am a mess. I am in pieces. I want him to put me back together.

"Your desire is the highest compliment," he says, going to his knees in front of me so he can be somewhat closer to my level. He reaches for my chin, knowing I am going to try to avoid his emerald gaze. "What I heard today does not change how I feel about you."

I let out a little sob of relief. "But I was the worst. I was the kind of mindless killer that Raine and the others hate. I was a tool of evil."

"You had no choice. Do you know what you really were, and still are?"

"What?"

"A survivor," he says. "You do what you need to do in order to keep yourself alive. You adapt when you need to adapt. But you always make it through. You are the sort of creature the universe loves. And I love you too."

"Wrath," I murmur.

"Yes?"

"Will you fuck me, please?"

He lets out a dark, sexy chuckle. "If you ask so nicely, how can I refuse?"

He strips my blanket dress from me. I really wish Raine hadn't seen me wearing that scrap. How embarrassing. Being naked is so much more preferable than wearing ugly, scratchy garments in front of haughty, mean women.

"Come here," Wrath growls, pulling me close. "I don't want to see that sad expression on your face again. You are everything to me. Do not ever let anybody make you feel less than perfect."

I just want his cock. I know once he is inside me, I won't be able to think about anything other than being fucked. I know I will be reminded that I am valued and safe, and that someone in this universe thinks I am special.

I grip his horn as he holds me up, his cock spreading me open so terribly, wonderfully wide. Being fucked by Wrath is like being made his. There's no part of me he doesn't own, and I love it.

I lost myself as a soldier, including my memories until they were cruelly jogged. I lost myself as a member of the crew of the Mare when the captains abandoned ship, but I am finding myself as Wrath's serving mate. Submitting to him gives me an incredible amount of pleasure.

"Fuck me, fuck me, please," I am sobbing, emotions being rutted out of me by this big, bad underground alpha.

I need this catharsis so badly.

He is so strong. I have never once been in his presence and felt anything other than instantly safe. Now I am more than safe. I am cherished.

He fucks me thoroughly, passionately, and carefully, ensuring he does not damage me with his massive alien member. My pussy stretches for him eagerly, my lips wrapped around his scaled cock, gripping every time he pulls out.

"You're perfect," he tells me. "You're my sweet, perfect, hot little human, and I am going to keep you for my own forever. You are owned, Allie. Every part of you. And you know it, don't you?"

"Yes!" I answer immediately, and am rewarded by him driving a little deeper inside me. He is taking very good care of me, trying to stop me from being too filled, too stretched, too hurt.

"Do you want to be bred? Do you want me to fill you up with this cock and follow up with my seed? Do you want to feel your belly swell?"

I look at him with horror and fear, but my pussy grips him tighter. There's something about the thought of being bred that makes me so fucking wet.

"You do, don't you. You want me to fill you up and have you lay for me. Do you know how it will feel when that happens? When you are stretched from the inside out, and your body and mine create new life?"

I don't know if I want to have a baby, but I know I want to do everything he wants me to do. I want him to own my body, and I want to give him everything he has ever desired.

"I'm going to breed you," he growls. "I'm going to breed this tight, wet little hole of yours. It won't matter what you were in the past. You're going to be my mate, and the mother of my babies. I'm going to breed you until you don't remember a thing before it."

With every word, he is bouncing my pussy on the tip of his thick cock, using me to bring himself to orgasm. I have been a greedy girl when it comes to coming on his dick, but being bred means it's not just me orgasming on him anymore. It means him fucking me, holding me down on his cock, and filling me with his seed.

"Yes," he growls. "Do you feel it?"

I feel his cock swell inside me, and a moment later my womb is absolutely awash in alien cum. I can feel the pressure of the intensity of the volume of his cum as he fills me with enough semen to knock me up a thousand times.

The feeling sends me right over the edge. I am so wet, I am so tight, I am so fucking filled, and my orgasm is hitting me full-force, erasing every other thought in my mind for several blissful minutes.

I come to my senses naked on the bed, where unfortunately everything Raine said to me, and everything I remembered inevitably comes rushing back. I wish I could stay in a fuck-drunk state forever, but that's not how life works.

"I am a person! I am not a thing!" I exclaim suddenly, having said nothing for quite some time.

"Of course you're a person," Wrath comforts me. "You're as much a person as a person can be. Don't let the cruel words of the thoughtless privileged females you have called captain define your sense of who you are."

"I want them to acknowledge me. I don't want to be treated like I'm nothing, you know?"

"Of course. And you are something. You are everything to me."

Wrath's words are so incredibly sweet. I wonder if he means them. He hardly knows me. It's been a few days trapped inside a hole in the ground. Is that enough time for a saurian to fall in love?

A tap at the door interrupts my little meltdown and subsequent romantic confusion.

"Sorry to interrupt," Sullivan's voice comes through an intercom. "I was hoping I could talk to you, Allie. I've brought you something new to wear too."

That's very thoughtful of her. Wrath looks at me, as if checking to see if I want her to come in. I nod, giving permission. It would be nice to talk to Sullivan, and it would be even nicer to wear something actually made for a human.

He lets her into the room, giving me just enough time to cover myself with a sheet first. There's no way Sullivan doesn't know precisely what we've been doing in here, but she's very chill about it as she comes in.

"Here," Sullivan says, handing me a dress. "It's simple, but I think it will fit and be comfortable. Why don't you get cleaned up. There's a bathroom over there, out in the main room, well, sort of off the main room, and you can get dressed fresh and feel more human. I want to talk to you. You're not the only one who has suffered with one of those fucking chips."

I take her up on her offer, mumbling thanks to her as I rush to the bathroom. Sullivan has always been a better person than anybody else. I really did not agree with the mutiny that got her ousted as captain, though I did understand it. That was the mistake that led us all here. If only we'd known nothing would do as much damage as one apparently sensible decision.

I shower, which feels incredible, and I get dressed. I don't have any underwear, but the dress has a fitted enough bodice that there's some support there. It's blue and snug around my upper body, and the skirt flares out just enough to be feminine and flattering. I brush my hair out. It will dry wavy in the air. As I get ready, I look at myself in the mirror.

I am pretty.

I forget that sometimes. I spent so long being nothing more than the cleaning lady on the Mare , keeping myself to myself, never really bothering to look in a mirror.

When I leave the bathroom, Thorn is waiting for me. He smiles at me, his green eyes running up and down my body in a way that makes me want to disappear back into the bedroom again. I can't though, because Sullivan is also waiting out in the main room where everybody is still milling about in their own conversational huddles. She has brought more peace offerings, ice-cream sundaes.

This is why I miss her. She knows how to make everything better.

Sullivan and I sit down next to one another and eat our treats. I am surprised to find that I actually feel quite content and satisfied right now. Being in her presence reminds me of the old times, and being reminded me of the old times makes me feel safe.

She nudges me with her shoulder. "I heard what happened," she says. "And I'm sorry. Lettie shouldn't have done that to you."

"Lettie is desperate," I say dismissively. I don't want to talk about her. I want to talk about Sullivan. "Are you going to come back to the Mare ? Or is it all over?"

"I mean, eventually Thorn's going to want me to get some kind of job. I have to pay my way," she winks at me.

I miss her charisma. I miss her captaincy. I miss her.

"But I discovered something about myself down here. I was chipped. Like you. I wasn't a good soldier, but I couldn't feel fear. Mine malfunctioned. Stopped stopping the fear. I'm not who I used to be. I don't know if I would even be able to function as captain anymore. Raine might be the better option."

"Raine is never the better option," I snark.

"I will take that as a compliment," Raine says, her voice dry.

I jump in my seat, turning around to look at her. She must have snuck back in while nobody was looking. Or maybe the saurians just thought we'd all calmed down. Sullivan and I exchange looks and unspoken thoughts as our eyes meet.

Raine is insufferable. She's always lurking. Always aware of everything. I am so tired of it.

"Why are you talking to me? You think I'm a robot."

Her brow rises. "You're mouthy on this planet."

I could say a lot back. A lot of things I don't say at all.

"If you knew how much people don't say around you…"

"What do you want, Raine?" Sullivan asks the question with the authority that comes from having been captain of her own ship for years, and being alpha Thorn's mate. Sullivan might be the only person who has never been afraid of Raine.

Raine folds her arms over her chest. "I want to know what is going to be done about Lettie. They're talking about shooting the ship down. If they do that, there's no getting off the planet."

"There's a whole entire port," Sullivan says. "I almost escaped through it myself. The Mare isn't the only way off the planet."

"There's another reason not to shoot the Mare down," I add, horrified at the absence of common sense from this discussion.

"What's that?"

"Lettie's baby is on that ship," I say. "You're talking about shooting down a baby."

"Not something your species historically seemed to care much about," Avel mutters. I don't know what the hell he means by that. I wonder what Raine has been telling him.

I'm now very much aware that Sullivan and my conversation is not at all private. Everybody is listening in. That's kind of good, and kind of bad. Bad, because I really want to spend some time with the only person who has approximated a friend in years. Good, because this way I get to influence their thoughts and decision-making process.

The saurians exchange looks as we mention the baby. I don't think they care about the baby, but I think they care very much what their mates think. Funny that such a heinous act should only be halted by disapproval. Saurian social ties are just as strong as human ones, even if respect for the young and attachment to those they create is not.

"Then we need another way to bring the ship down, because that crazy woman and her traitor mate cannot be allowed to threaten the peace of Grave City," Avel says.

"I want my damn ship back. And not in a thousand pieces, either," Sullivan scowls. "There better not be a scratch on that thing."

Thorn gives her a look, which she ignores blithely.

"There's only one thing Lettie wants. Well. Two things. Thorn. And Wrath. She'd probably settle for Wrath," Raine says.

Wrath clears his throat.

"She can have me."

Thorn lifts a brow at him.

"What? You'd give yourself to save some random half-bred baby?"

"I will go up to the ship, I will deal with the traitor, I will take the female and the baby, and this will be at an end."

"Or you will go up to the ship, she will kill you, and then her reign of terror continues."

Wrath shrugs. "You can always shoot the ship down if I fail."

I am listening to all of this with a growing sense of horror. He does not have any idea of what he is getting into, and I won't allow it.

"You're not going up alone," I say. "I will go with you."

"I will go alone," he says, immediately discounting my idea. "You are too precious to risk."

"So are you."

Wrath chuckles at me. Avel and Thorn exchange knowing looks. This room is absolutely filled with conversations that are not actually undergoing the formality of being held out loud.

"Cute, but you are absolutely not coming. You are going to stay here with your captain, and with Thorn. I trust them to keep you safe. You are among friends for the first time in a long time. Don't waste that."

He might be right, but he's also very wrong. Thorn is not my friend, Raine is not my friend, and Sullivan was my captain, but I don't think she's planning on being captain again. That chapter of my life is over. And a new one is beginning.

It starts with not letting Wrath go up to the ship alone.

"Don't worry," Sullivan whispers in my ear. "I'll get you on that ship."