Alex

ALEX

I slowly move back into the alleyway I've exited, attempting to keep my breathing and my movements easy and normal. The large, dark robot scans the area, but on Trefa, they're not allowed to use anything other than body heat scanning, which means as the temperature has climbed to the middle of the nova-day and the markets are busy, there are enough warm bodies which will stop it from detecting me.

Not for the first time, the lawlessness of this alien planet has worked to my…or rather my bounty hunter owner's advantage as I flee back the way I came.

"Where are you going so fast?" A big, pudgy green fist grabs my clothing, and I'm pulled up short.

"Scout-bot," I gasp.

I'm dragged into the sudden darkness of a drinking den. The stench of stale alcohol and male bodies makes me gag. Ixor shoves his bulbous, ugly face into mine.

"Did it see you?"

"What do you think I am? Stupid?" I snap back. "Of course it didn't detect me."

Ixor's dark piggy eyes narrow. I shouldn't have spoken back to him. The troll-like Habosu bounty hunter might need me, but as he so often points out, slaves are plentiful. Should he decide to purchase a replacement, I'd be surplus to requirements.

Although the chances of getting a human female like me, abducted nearly two nova-years ago from a small village in Yorkshire and passed around by enough different alien species to know the score, is unlikely. Nor will he find someone small enough to dominate and get into places he simply can't go.

Doesn't stop the threats though.

"Good," he breathes, the stink of booze pouring from his mouth and pores. "I have business to complete here." He shoves me away from him, thankfully. "Go back to the safe house. I want to eat when I get back."

With some difficulty, I manage not to roll my eyes. Like he ever stops eating. That is, when he isn't drinking. Problem is, while I've been attempting not to react, it's given Ixor's drunken brain time to work out what I said to him earlier. Or more importantly, how I said it.

I'm grabbed by the throat. As he squeezes, it's a none-too-subtle reminder why he's the bounty hunter, and I'm just the human alien abductee. The quiet librarian who had her simple, touch-starved life of nothingness, a gentle merry-go-round of work and home with nothing in between.

"I found you in the gutter, you foul little thing, and I can send you back there," he snarls, all disgusting breath and discolored tusks. "Only, as an escaped slave, you're worth less than zero, so don't forget I give you a roof over your head and food for your belly."

He holds me out, my legs kicking as I'm lifted onto my tiptoes.

"If you weren't so ugly to look at, I'd not bother with clothing for you either." He sneers before letting me go. "Humans!" he snorts. "What exactly are you good for?"

I stumble back, clutching my throat but making sure to put enough distance between me and him so he can't do it again.

He knows what I do for him, over and over. He knows I can't leave. And yet he delights in torturing me.

"Ixor?" a rough but feminine voice calls out from behind a long ribbon curtain.

It strikes me this is actually a nicer place than the ones Ixor usually frequents. It might not smell fragrant, but it isn't a bar…it's one of the more down-market pleasure houses.

I feel sick.

"Gak off," Ixor hisses at me. "And don't go wandering about looking for trouble, or I'll know." He gives the metal cuff around my wrist a pointed glance.

Without further incident, I make it back to the filthy alley which hides the place he optimistically calls a "safe house." I guess it's safe because no one else in their right mind would live there.

Creatures scuttle under the meagre furniture as I enter, using my metal cuff, and the lights turn on. The place is a shit hole. Trefa is a shit hole and its capital, Tatatunga, is the biggest shit hole of them all.

"How the fuck did I end up here?" I say out loud.

"I think you'll find, mistress, you ended up here because you were idiotic enough to take wrong turning one night and allowed the Drahon to abduct you from your planet." A metallic voice comes from under the sagging couch.

I roll my eyes, properly this time, and with emphasis. I should never have admitted to Ixor I had an aptitude for tech, which meant he took me to some back street butcher who "enhanced" my abilities with an information chip inserted directly, and painfully, into my cerebral cortex.

I probably wouldn't have reprogrammed the floor cleaning bot to hold a conversation had I not admitted such a thing, and then I wouldn't have the universe's sassiest Roomba.

"I saw ick-roaches when I came in. Are you doing your job or what?" I shout back at it.

The bot, shaped like a centipede, undulates out from under the furniture, and I swear it gives me a side eye.

"What's for dinner?" it says in Ixor's voice.

"Fuck off." I stomp into the tiny food prep area. Swearing at something makes me feel better, even if I'd prefer to be swearing at Ixor.

Chances are he won't be all that long. He never is when he visits pleasure houses. Which means I have to prepare his food quickly. If I'm lucky, I might get the leftovers.

If I'm unlucky, he'll have more work for me before the day is done. And where there is a bounty hunter, the work is never going to be palatable, especially for me. There's no getting away—from Ixor, from Tatatunga, or from Trefa—not as a lone human female, an escaped slave or otherwise.

This is my life. This grotty place and a robot vacuum which talks back. But what other choice do I have?

If I run from him, he will hunt me down and kill me like I've seen him do to countless of his marks. If I stay, I'm probably going to die anyway in the crossfire. At least fixing his dinner today means I'll be alive tomorrow.

And maybe a miracle will happen.