Crystal

The opulent surroundings, with the huge window looking out into the dome, mark this place out as an alien hospitality suite. Bots carrying drinks and food trundle over the luxurious floor covering serving the select group of punters, ranging from a gaggle of fat Belek, a Bosszanto who I don't think can believe his luck, to three tall, thin blue aliens with no obvious mouths and huge bald heads.

And, of course, the black clad guards with their pulsar rifles. I'm nudged over to where the Uhatx is…lounging.

Can a creature with smoke tentacles for his bottom half lounge? Phxt is making a good job of it if that is the case. He pats a seat next to him.

"Come and watch your mate. He's making a good showing so far," he says, with a level of glee in his grating voice which makes me want to punch him in the face.

I shake my head, feeling like I should make a show of not wanting to be around the Uhatx, even if I do need to get close in order to help Drelix. To no one's surprise at all, I'm shoved forward by the guard and nearly end up in his lap.

He licks his thin black lips salaciously, the yellow eyes as blank as before, but there's enough in his expression which makes me want to run.

I don't run. Instead I sit where he indicated, and a bot rolls up with a glass.

"Drink! Eat! Enjoy yourself," Phxt exhorts.

"Why? When Drelix wins, we're out of here. What do you care?"

"He has to win first, and there's one question neither of you have asked." Phxt takes a sip of a dark red drink which looks suspiciously like blood.

"What is that?"

"What happens to you if he doesn't win?"

My stomach plummets into my boots. Boots I'm wearing under this dress for exactly the reasons I've ended up at the hands of a psycho alien in the first place. Boots made for running if the need arises.

I didn't spend months on Station X42 and not learn a thing or two about survival.

"I don't know," I say breezily, taking the drink and pretending to take a swallow. "What happens if Drelix doesn't win?"

Phxt looks over his shoulder as a nasty smile spreads over his face. I follow his gaze. Standing at the back of the room is Lord Makkan and his sidekick. They glower at me but don't make a move.

"Apparently humans are quite sought after in some parts of the galaxy." Phxt looks me up and down. "As breeders."

I feel instantly sick, but a roar from the crowd outside draws my attention away from the insinuation. Looking down on the arena, I see Drelix, standing out against a background of black, the neon lights flickering under his skin. I don't understand why he hasn't changed into a dragon, why everything isn't on fire, why he seems to be slowly drowning in a mass of blackness.

Until a head rises out of the darkness, an eyeless thing which looks like a nightmare eel, it opens huge jaws exposing teeth which have to be my height.

The audience outside groans.

"Drelix!" I start forward, my hand pressed on the glass shield out into the dome.

Phxt makes a noise which could be a tut. "Seems your mate isn't doing as well as I thought he might," he says, coming alongside me. "But then a human could hardly appreciate what a Sarkarnii in rut will do for her, could she?"

"Drelix," I whisper, my breath fogging the glass briefly.

I feel as if the life is being pulled out of me, down into depths I didn't believe existed. Can it be true? Am I falling for my big bad dragon? Something I resigned myself a long time ago would never happen to me.

Love is for the birds, isn't it? I've read enough romance to know it happens to others, not me. Not a soaring of life and hearts entwined. Love happens to everyone else, not the traitorous stepdaughter of a London crime kingpin no one would claim to miss.

The shadow of a person, who could be taken from Earth and treated like a science experiment…and then a toy for aliens.

I don't get to love…do I?

Down below, way, way below, Drelix is struggling, or has he given up? It's hard to tell.

Until he throws up both arms.

I spin on the spot and fling my drink into Uhxt's face and boot the bot next to us at the guard to my left. It hits him full in the legs, and he goes down like a sack of potatoes, or the alien equivalent. I'm on him straight away, pulling the pulsar rifle from his flailing hands and firing a couple of bolts into the ceiling.

Phxt's patrons scatter, but he's wiping his face and looking remarkably calm.

"Give it to me," I say, pointing the rifle at him. "Give me the vid-screen."

Phxt chuckles quietly. "No," he says.

I increase the intensity of the pulsar beam using the button on the side, but his gaze doesn't waver from mine.

"I have the power to say whether your mate lives or dies," Phxt says. "Out there, in the dome. I can keep him complete for you or return him in a bucket. But I can do neither if you use that on me."

I want to blow his head off. I really, really do. Not only does his attitude remind me of the aliens who experimented on me and then handed me off to the ones who…did the things to me, but he simply does not care about anything or anyone other than himself.

Something I've had more than enough of in the brave new galaxy. Technology, it seems, brings out the best and the worst in any species. Today is a day to end one of the worst.

Unfortunately it's also the day a zigurex crashes into the hospitality box, its jaws snapping before I can let off any further pulsar bolts. A fang scores into my flesh and as the pain sears through me, I think I see Drelix.

And then I see nothing.