1. Agatha

He was a fascinating, terrifying sight, like seeing the remains of a horrific car crash on your way home from the supermarket. You knew you shouldn't look but you couldn't help it.

His head was angular and square, his chin thick and muscular, his huge lat muscles so broad he might as well have had no neck.

He towered over Lily who greeted and ushered him toward her "wares." That was us, the Prizes the fighters could choose from.

I thought Lily might share a little more camaraderie with me considering we were from the same species but was met with disappointment.

I had quickly learned we were not alone in the universe. There were as many intelligent species spread throughout the galaxy as there were creatures on Earth.

As a trained scholar, I had a fascination with history. When the other girls told me about their species, I found a treasure trove of new fables.

It was the stories I loved, the way they grabbed an audience and held them suspended during their telling and invoked emotions that enthralled. The girls told me all about their species. They were very open and excited to share their cultures. But the discussions always ended the same way—with them turning sad and no longer wishing to speak with me.

Reminiscing about the past could have that effect, I supposed. The stories kept me entertained while the beasts took me to their cells and used my body for their vulgar purposes.

Sometimes I enjoyed it. Most of the time, I didn't.

I floated away into the worlds of other cultures, finding solace in knowing how small I was and how there were billions, possibly trillions, of lives out there, keenly unaware of my existence. It made me aware of just how little I really was in the grand scheme of things.

The monster that leered at each of the Prizes now was a species I was unaccustomed to. He was huge and his body was brandished with scars from countless battles. Gold rings hung from his nose and the fringes of his ears. Where the other girls shied away from him, I peered at those ornaments and wondered what they meant.

My curiosity had gotten me in more trouble than I cared to admit. The prisoners took my interest to mean I was attracted to them and not their scars and tattoos spread across their bodies.

I tugged on the arm of my sheer fabric dress to reveal the dark bruise on my arm. I got it from falling out of a prisoner's bed the day before. It was sore to the touch and hadn't yet turned purple on its way to healing itself. I was desperate for a night off. Perhaps this imperfection would convince the monster surveying the girls to pass on me.

The monster snorted, still a little tired from his earlier battle. His eyes finally came to mine. I quickly looked away and cursed myself for losing track of myself again.

He pointed at me with a hand home to a nest of sharpened black nails.

"That one," he growled.

Shit.

I stepped from the dais. The monster didn't wait for me to join him. Instead, he turned on his hooves and marched toward the hallway. Before I could step forward to follow him, one of the other girls grabbed me by the arm.

"Careful," Harper said. "He's Egara."

Egara.

I turned to peer at him and appraised his muscular frame head to foot. In good shape to be sure, but no better or worse than a lot of prisoners.

I shot Harper a look. Concern was etched clearly on her face.

The rumors about the legendary "Egara" were as terrifying as they were fascinating. He was what the girls referred to as a "jackhammer."

Once he started, he didn't stop, pushing each of the girls far beyond their usual physical capabilities. He used them for his own pleasure but unlike many of the other inmates who might talk the talk, Egara could actually walk the walk.

He'd been with many of the girls on the stage and liked to pick a different "flavor" each time he won a fight.

The girls talked. We were all aware of the challenge he provided. I wondered if I would fare as badly as they had.

"Take this," Harper said, taking something from one of the other girls.

It was a vial of lubrication farmed from a plant called a ghastic.

I gulped.

"You're going to need it," Harper said.

I nodded my thanks and took it from her. With no pockets to conceal it in, I cupped it in the palm of my hand.

I joined Egara at the exit and felt a little unsteady as I moved through the hallways at his side. The other prisoners leered at me, nodding approvingly.

My thoughts were on the approaching night.

I was in, as the rumors liked to say, for the fuck of my life.

All the wayto his room, Egara didn't look me in the face. Instead, he took a great deal of interest in my breasts that pressed against the sheer fabric of my dress. My dark nipples were visible to anyone who liked to look.

And many eyes did like to look as we wound down those endless hallways.

The guards, as always, followed on our heels, shock rifles clasped tightly to their chests. I wondered if they ever looked at the girls in the Prize Pool and wanted a little taste.

I doubted it. Not once had I seen them glance in our direction or get distracted by a girl.

Shame, I thought. I always liked a man in uniform.

Even if he wasn't a man. And even if the uniform did consist of thick plates of metal over a hard exoskeleton of technology I could barely even fathom.

As a historian, it was fascinating to see the evolution of advanced weaponry and armor. They moved in obvious and predictable lines. Anyone who had seen a suit of armor couldn't help but recognize the armor these futuristic guards wore.

The material might be stronger, might have technology stitched into its every atom, but it still performed the same function as medieval plate mail.

I ran a hand over my dress, my palms growing sweaty. My mind always wandered when I became nervous.

We came to a stop outside a cell door that looked identical to the hundreds of others we'd passed on our way here. I wondered about the countless lives and stories the prisoners had to tell. I wondered—

Stop! Focus!

I waited for Egara to motion for me to enter his cell but he didn't. He only stood and watched me. I stepped inside first and found the cell to have the appearance I expected.

Cold, sterile, rough, with scuff marks along the walls. There was no private bathroom and no other amenities. The bed was barely big enough for a monster of his size and no art or personal items hung on the walls.

That, at least, was a bit of a surprise.

Most of the prisoners liked to have something to remind them of home or the past life they once occupied. This cell had nothing at all that identified it as belonging to Egara. It could have belonged to any number of prisoners.

I liked to scan their possessions and get an idea of who I was dealing with, talking points I could distract them with.

But he had none.

I stopped in the middle of the cell and turned to face my host. He had to turn sideways and squat slightly to fit through the doorway.

The cell door hissed shut and we were alone.

We stood facing each other for a moment, that same awkwardness passing between us like the river Nile. We both knew what we were there to do.

It was only a matter of time before he took me. Would it be right away or would he prefer a little conversation first?

I was his to do with as he pleased. Nothing would happen that he didn't have complete control over.

The silence seized my tongue the way it always did in this situation. My mind was full of interesting pieces of information on centuries of human history and general details about the culture of dozens of others, but I hadn't been brought to this cell, or any of the others, for engaging conversation.

"Would you like me to sit?" I said, motioning to the bed.

The monster called Egara peered at me—and when I say me, I really meant my breasts—and didn't say a word.

He stepped toward me and raised a hand to touch me.

I shut my eyes and turned my face to one side.

Jackhammer. He's a jackhammer.

"When he claims you, you're in for the fuck of your life."

I tried to shut out Harper's warning and the circulating rumors the girls whispered about Egara over the past few months.

His thick fingers ran over the pendant that clasped my dress together at the shoulder. His black nail caught on it and made a soft tink noise.

Egara unfastened the pendant with surprising dexterity and my dress slid from my body to the ground.

He would ravage me, the way he had the other girls, I thought.

I felt the thin vial of lubrication in my hand. I would have to use it secretly. Sometimes inmates were suspicious of tools girls brought into their cells as if we were deliberately trying to sabotage them or our lovemaking.

The way to make them relax was simple. We parroted Harper's line: "You're so big I have to use it to make sure you fit inside me." That always made them feel good about themselves. They allowed us to use it after that.

Nothing worked better than soothing a monster's ego.

Egara held my pendant in his hand. It seemed to hold more interest for him than my naked body.

He moved around me, bent down, and pulled out a plastic container from under the bed. Inside it was some kind of flimsy-looking device. It consisted of a long metal pole with about a dozen cylinders arranged around each side.

He snapped my pendant in half with his powerful hands, then snapped each of those pieces in half, and again, until he had enough pieces to slide into the cylinders.

And there I stood, stark naked save for my high heels. I peered at an invisible audience and shrugged my shoulders.

Now what?

I shivered from the cold. The sheer fabric of my dress might not have seemed like much but it did an admirable job of keeping out the cold.

The guy was more interested in his stupid machine than he was in me!

I wanted to shout at him. "Hey! I'm right here!"

But did I really want to distract him from his little device? It gave me time to relax, and that was rare enough when I was in another creature's cell. I scooped up my dress and slipped it on over my head. I tied the two ends of the shoulder strap together into a knot to do the job the pendant had once done.

I sat on the bed. There was little else I could do. I got comfortable. I felt relieved and yet a little disappointed he wasn't more interested in me. It was a slap in the face after he'd had such a wild time with the other Prizes.

Was there something wrong with me? I wondered. Maybe the stories about him were exaggerated. Maybe he only went crazy with non-human species.

Except, Harper had shared similar stories to the others. He'd liked Harper, so why didn't he like me?

It must be me he didn't like, I realized.

I looked my body over.

I wasn't in bad shape, I thought. I didn't get to eat healthy food or work out in a gym as much as I liked but I couldn't help that.

I decided to make conversation.

"So, uh, what are you working on there?" I said.

He started, which only added coal to the fire of my contempt for him. He'd forgotten I was even there!

"A little project I'm working on," he said, turning the cylinders so they faced a slightly different direction.

"What's its purpose?" I said.

He looked over at me—at my face and not my body. Only then did it occur to me that earlier, he hadn't been admiring my swollen breasts, he'd been infatuated with my brooch!

"I can't tell you that," he said secretively. "I'm not even sure it'll work."

I appraised the machine and couldn't even begin to figure out what it was meant for. My expertise was in the domain of the past, not this futuristic technology.

"Have you been here a long time?" I said.

"Six months. You?"

"A year."

He nodded but didn't give any indication he wanted to continue the conversation.

"Where are you from?" I said. "Which species are you?"

"Originally, planet Vulcar. I'm a Vulcarian."

Vulcarian… Vulcarian… Hadn't I heard something about that species before? I could swear one of the girls—or one of the other prisoners—had said something about it…

"What are Vulcarians famous for?" I said.

If it was one thing I had learned about alien species, it was that they were all proud of the fact their species was uniquely gifted at one enterprise or another.

"Raiding and pillaging, mostly," Egara said.

Raiding and pillaging! That was it!

The Vulcarians were the intergalactic equivalent of pirates. I heard about them from both prisoners and Prizes because they were a constant pest to their civilizations. It was hard enough to develop an empire with multiple colonies without having pirates hijack your merchandise every time you turned around.

Still, it annoyed me he was paying more attention to his device than to me. I felt the vial of lubricant in my hand and suddenly, the warnings from the other Prizes became a well of curiosity.

What made him so good in bed and the other prisoners poor by comparison? I wondered. They weren't bad bedmates but what made Egara so much better?

Curiosity got the better of me and I had an idea.

Was I seriously thinking about doing this? I thought. Was I seriously going to provoke Egara into action?

I gnawed my bottom lip and decided that yes, I would. I was too curious about what made him such a great lover.

I laid back on the bed and placed my feet on the bedspread. I eased my feet apart so my pussy was on full show, not more than a few feet from him on the floor.

I popped the lid on the vial, slid a finger into it, lowered my hand to my slit, and ran my finger inside, rubbing at myself the way I liked.

He was going to fuck me later anyway, so why not warm up and prepare myself for the festivities?

It was an endless source of fascination for my classmates at college that I could be such a nerdy bookworm at school and such a party-going slut in the evenings.

I never understood their way of thinking. Those who most needed respite from work were the ones who worked the hardest.

I groaned breathily as I stroked myself. My nipples followed suit and turned pert and hard.

Egara glanced up at me before turning back to his beloved machine. He paused and looked up at me again.

This time, I had his attention.

I squeezed my breasts, pinching my nipples as my fingers worked their magic, making me warmer and wetter each time I dived deep.

I opened my eyes and looked over at him.

Daring him.

Challenging him.

His eyes roamed from my soft loins, up my body, to my hand clasped firmly around my breast.

His nostrils flattened, turning broad. He snorted. His eyes turned waxen and misty and shoved the plastic box under the bed with a violent kick. He pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it to the floor.

He unzipped his fly and let his shorts fall. He didn't kick them off.

I peered at his large cock standing proud. Big, but not the biggest I had seen. It was his staying power that was legendary, not his size, I reminded myself.

I dipped my fingers into the vial again and added the lubrication to my pussy.

He grabbed my hips and pulled me toward the side of the bed. There was no warmup, no teasing, as he slammed his bulging cock deep inside me.

I gasped and let out a slow breath.

He peered down at me as he moved his hips back and forth. I rubbed my clit before thinking better of it. I was wet enough for him to do what he wanted with me.

What I needed from him.

My breasts bounced as he fucked me hard, making me slide backward. I braced myself on the wall.

Jackhammer indeed.

He went for me hard, and when I thought it was about time for him to slow down and shift to a lower gear the way most lovers did, he didn't.

He just kept on going, pummeling me and taking me deeper and deeper. I wondered how he could keep going, how he could keep slamming me without growing overexcited.

I tightened around him and screamed as he tore an orgasm from my chest.

And still, he did not stop.

I wondered what I'd gotten myself into. I had brought this on myself.

My dress gathered around my hips as he finally shifted position, placing one hoof on the bed and my legs across his chest. My legs couldn't even reach his shoulders otherwise my knees would be resting on them.

With the opening sprint over, he set to his long game.

Slower this time, luxurious and delicious, he kept up the slow pace for longer than I dared to imagine. Each time I stiffened, my hands found his fingers holding on tightly to my hips and pinning me in place.

The sweat dried on my body at a slower pace but a new layer dimpled the surface of my skin now. My body shuddered as he dove inside me.

His nostrils snorted and, although not tired, he was clearly working hard. He sped up as he felt me clench around him and he ripped another body-shaking orgasm from my throat.

I was in the hands of a master, somehow attuned to every movement and rhythmic pulse of my body.

He stroked me the way I liked, exactly when I liked.

I had never begged for my lover to stop before, and I was trying desperately hard not to say it now. He took me to the very fringes of pleasure that crested intense pain.

Unable to take it any longer, I broke.

"Stop," I said. "Stop."

He was taking me to a place I had never been before, and it frightened me.

I clutched my hands to his but he didn't let go, didn't stop, and kept on drilling me.

"I can't…" I gasped. "I can't…"

"Trust me," he said through gritted teeth. "You can."

I shook my head as he shifted me onto my stomach and entered me from behind, plunging me to new depths. The angle was different, deeper than earlier, and largely untouched by his throbbing cock.

He plumbed it.

He leaned forward and whispered in my ear.

"You're almost there. I can feel it."

My hair was slick with sweat and my entire body ached. Each stroke in my pussy threatened to overtake me. But the real danger, the real threat, was just there, on the horizon of my endurance.

I found a new lease of confidence and bounced back, pushing against him as he thrust deep inside me.

He grunted under his breath as we rode that ultimate rise to peer over the edge of the precipice to the unknown islands of paradise that lay on the other side.

"Yes," I said. "Yes!"

I screamed as he took me over the side. He grunted and pummeled me, riding me unlike anyone else ever has before, and we both descended into the raging rapids.

I turned my head to kiss him. He leaned over me. Our lips were joined and a spark fired that began in my aching pussy and bounced over the surface of my entire body.

His hips thrust one last time and his cock hardened in that signature sign that he had climaxed as he pumped his seed inside me.

Jackhammer wasn't an appropriate description.

How about sex god?

It wasn't justthe physical sex that pushed me over the edge. There was something else too, something unmistakable, something I had never noticed before.

It wasn't only because he had taken me to a depth of orgasm I'd never experienced before. It was the sensation of rightness. He touched me not only physically but emotionally.

It was a crashing crescendo of perfectly formulated music with the chords and high melody working in tandem to paint complete harmony.

It was a golden light at the heart of me, at my center, and as I peered over at the stallion lying beneath me in his bed, with me curled up on his broad chest, I wondered if he felt it too.

Probably not, I thought. This was probably normal for him and there was nothing special about it at all.

Though it was easy to forget in a place like this, there was such a thing as love. I knew that from seeing the look on Ivy's face each time Kren came to pick her up.

I'd begun to notice the same expression on—unbelievably—Harper's face too. She'd been in this place longer than any of the others—except for Lily, who we tended not to count as part of the Prizes.

I wasn't happy with where I found myself but through my endless studying about the history of others, I learned the great and the good and the truly evil all had one thing in common: they made the most of whatever position they were put in.

They could be at war, with the river at their backs and their enemy intent on slaying them, and they would look deep inside themselves for how they were going to deal with their situation.

This wasn't the first time I had great sex with an inmate but it was the first time I felt that blossoming golden light in my chest.

What did it mean?

Did it even mean anything?

Probably not. And it served no one for me to think it did.

My skin felt hot to the touch and I wondered if I was still recovering from the previous night of lovemaking.

I placed my arm to the wall and the coolness of it soothed my skin.

I happened to glance at my arm where, until just a few hours ago, I sported the nasty black bruise. Only now… it was gone.

"Huh?" I said out loud.

I ran a hand over the spot where I knew it should have been but was no longer there.

Maybe I was mistaken and it was on the other arm. It didn't sound very likely but it was the kind of thing I had done multiple times over the years.

I checked but it didn't sport the ugly injury either. Even stranger was that the spot where I was certain the bruise should have been was even hotter than the rest of my body.

Had it been a rash? I wondered. Was that the reason for it not being visible?

Then why wasn't it itchy? I wondered. And why didn't it hurt?

It didn't make sense. Why should the nasty bruise be there one day and not there the next?

Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. That, at least, was an explanation I could understand.

I filed it away for later and focused on the moment in hand.

I'd never experienced anything like it my entire life. I kept a neat and tidy list of my favorite lovers over the years and no one had ever come close to surpassing Greg Kyle in college. We hadn't been together long, which made our time together even more memorable.

But now, Greg Kyle was a very distant third. The two times we had sex last night overshadowed Greg's meager effort by a long way.

Nothing even came close.

I leaned back and looked at the creature that'd brought this on me. His skin was as red as the dust in the inhospitable desert outside. His horns would have been white when he was born but had turned a waxy-yellow hue through the years of battle and war. There were more than a dozen chips to those elongated horns of his.

His body was crisscrossed with endless scars from the tip of his sloped brow to the tips of his toes where etches had been cleaved into his calves.

Most of the creatures in the prison were capable of healing quickly and I wondered what sort of harm he'd endured to have such violent marks on him as this. He couldn't have gotten them all fighting in the pit as he'd only been here six months.

He was a pirate, I reminded myself. He could've easily have come across violent attacks during that time.

Pirates, I thought wryly, shaking my head.

Intergalactic pirates.

History always had a way of repeating itself, running in cycles without end.

The blankets rustled as Egara came awake. He smacked his lips and yawned, stretching with his enormous arms. His bones cracked and he wiggled his toes. He lowered his hand to my ass and patted me.

"Sleep well?" he said, shutting his eyes and letting the fringes of sleep descend once more.

"Great," I said, surprised I really meant it.

I didn't usually sleep well in strange rooms. I rarely slept well in my own these days either. Beneath the makeup, I had dark bags under my eyes.

I stretched and flinched at the pain.

"Sore?" he said.

"A little," I said.

It felt like I'd enjoyed a good workout at the gym, something I hadn't done since I got here.

"I'm a little sore too," Egara said, grunting and screwing up his face. "I must have worked you hard. But it's your fault for turning me on the way you did."

I blushed, my cheeks and entire face burning red. I slapped him on his giant muscular forearm.

"Do you usually hurt after sex?" I said.

"No," he said and seemed a little surprised by his answer.

Egara was not traditionally handsome. His forehead was a little too high and his cheekbones a little too striking. His was more of a visceral, animalistic attraction, the type that drew everyone's eye whenever he entered a room. Charismatic was the word.

He rolled over onto his side and leaned his head on his bulging bicep. I'd always had a thing for big muscles and he had the biggest muscles of anyone I'd seen in this prison—and that was saying something as most of them were built.

This was my favorite part as a Prize. After fucking, after the awkward silences had passed, we could luxuriate in each other's presence. I had a real chance to get to know the creature that'd chosen me.

Every person was a story and there wasn't a single prisoner I'd been with that didn't have an interesting history to share.

I rolled onto my side and faced him, our naked bodies entwined, our bare skin rubbing against each other. I peered up into his eyes—and what eyes!

They were blazing turquoise and speared me in place. He had long eyelashes, blazing red skin, and huge horns jutting from either side of his head.

And yet, I felt as comfortable as could be in his presence.

"What made you become a pirate?" I said.

"What makes anyone become a pirate?"

I thought it was a rhetorical question but he appeared to be waiting for me to answer.

"I don't know," I said. "Desperation. A lack of opportunity?"

He threw his head back and barked a laugh.

"I suppose it could look that way from the outside. But no. We become pirates because it's what we've always done. It's written into our DNA."

"Always?"

"For the part of our lives that matter, yes."

I wasn't sure I much liked the sound of that. I preferred the idea of being in charge of my own destiny. I believed in taking responsibility for my life. But did that mean me ending up here as an alien's plaything was my fault?

Hm. That didn't sound right to me.

Egara smiled and lowered his face to the base of my neck and nuzzled me there, his lips kissing the soft skin and nipping at it with his teeth. He moved in closer to me and I felt his impressive thickness press against me.

"I had a ship," he said. "There were few other things I wanted to do, so I joined the family's pirate business."

I sighed as he lowered his lips to my nipples and stroked them gently. I tried to form the words of my next question but they died on my lips beneath his caress.

So gentle for such a big monster.

"How about you?" he said. "What were you before you got banged up in here?"

"I was a historian," I said, my eyes closed and enjoying his caress. I looked forward to what it might lead to.

He paused and pulled back, peering at me.

"A historian?" he said.

"Yes. I studied history and worked in a museum."

His eyes moved between mine before he blinked, a thought coming to him. He pulled back further.

"What's wrong?" I said.

"Historians… are very respected in my culture."

"They are?"

"They possess the only accounts of the history of our species and where we came from. Legend has it we were not originally a pirating culture but one of art and music and advanced machinery."

"What happened?"

He shrugged his enormous shoulders.

"There are conflicting accounts. When our aggressors destroyed our culture, they burnt much of our history along with it. They rewrote other parts to paint them in a glowing light. We're not sure which parts are true and which are false. Our historians have been working to piece together the map of who we are since the Great Breaking. Much of what we once knew about ourselves was lost. With our wealth stripped from us, we did whatever we could to survive."

"Piracy."

I reached out and ran a hand over his flaming red skin and around the thick horns that curled from his head. They twisted twice—out once, then inward, and finally out again, like the twin horns of a powerful bull.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"It's not your fault. We're forbidden to lay with historians. They must remain pure and focus on their work. Nothing is more important than what they do."

I thought of human monks from centuries earlier. They used to follow similar rules in the pursuit of writing and copying books to be distributed across the world.

"What's the punishment for breaking that rule?" I said.

"Castration."

I reached down and grabbed him by the balls. They were big and fit like plums in the palm of my hand. It only served to stiffen him further.

"A good thing I'm not a Vulcarian historian," I said.

He grunted.

"A very good thing," he said. "Or else half the Vulcarian population would be castrated and we'd die out from our inability to breed."

Now was my turn to laugh. I threw my head back and laughed bawdily.

"If other Vulcarians are anything like you last night, I would die before I got around to even a fraction of that number," I said.

He placed a large black-nailed hand on my cheek.

"I would never share you," he said, peering into my eyes.

My insides turned weak and I was beholden by those incredible eyes, sucking me in like tractor beams.

He pressed his lips against mine and I stabbed my tongue between his lips and felt his tongue on mine.

He exhaled slowly as he drew me to him, his forbidden historian fruit. He pressed his great girth against me, encouraging me to feel every inch of him.

I wondered how I'd managed to take him inside me the night before.

An alarm wailed. I paid no attention to it. It could have been from my own body warning me not to take him so deeply as last night or else risk losing myself to him.

When Egara pulled back and peered over his shoulder at the door to his cell, he paused a moment, one hand gripping my breast firmly, the other already stroking my sex.

The alarm came from outside his cell and continued to blare loudly.

Shouts rose up from throats that had to be other prisoners.

Egara frowned. He turned to me and took in all my glory, naked, in his bed, ready for him to take advantage of however he saw fit. He looked to be in some quandary about what he ought to do next.

He grunted in agitation and stepped from the bed, naked as the day he was born—assuming Vulcarians were born in the traditional human sense—and scooped up his pants and slipped them on.

I pulled the blanket to my breast and held it there, peering at the door as he approached it.

There wasn't anything odd about his species was there? Was it normal for them to share their mating partners with other members of his species?

I'd heard plenty of stories about other cultures where this was the case and it made me relieved there were few others like them in this part of the prison.

"What is it?" I said.

"I'm not sure," Egara said.

He approached the corner post of the bed, gripped it in his hands, held it steady, and wrenched it free.

He did it with the confidence of someone who knew it would give. It clued me in to the fact he'd had to do this more than once. He gripped it tightly in one of his giant hands and stood with his back to the wall beside the cell door.

The shouts outside grew louder, rising into a crescendo as heavy footsteps sprinted down the hallways and something clashed, banging and loud.

"Get down," he said, waving a hand at me.

I did as he asked and threw the blanket over my head.

Why did I have to get down? I wondered. Why did he even have to check outside?

The door slid open and the noises rushed into the tiny cell.

The siren was unbearably loud. The klaxon wailed high and low, rising and falling like an incoming tide. Between those cacophonous wailing groans and the screaming and yelling and baying for blood of the other prisoners, I was terrified.

The sounds cut out as the cell door slid shut again.

"What's going on?" I said, poking my head over the blankets.

I was shocked to find I was alone.

I peered at the wardrobe in the corner. There was no way Egara could hide in there. He wouldn't fit for a start. Neither could he fit his enormous bulk under the bed or crouch at the foot of the bed without me seeing him there.

He must have gone.

And left me alone.

There were other prisoners out there.

Loud and boisterous and, most of all, dangerous.

And he left me alone.

What if they were to come in? What if he'd gone out there on purpose to sell me to those creeps?

I tried to calm down and tell myself he wouldn't do something like that.

Why would he?

But he was a pirate, wasn't he? There was no telling what those kinds of people were capable of.

I lowered the blanket from my head and expelled the heat that'd gathered beneath the covers. I peered at the door.

It was still shut. I couldn't lie here naked and wet and ready for action in case a random prisoner came in.

I slid to the side of the bed and, keeping an eye on the door, scooped up my flimsy piece of clothing that felt little better than tissue paper. I pulled it on.

Still, I felt exposed.

I moved for Egara's wardrobe and sorted through the clothes until I came to the simple shirts. I grabbed one and pulled it over my head. It fell to my knees. Okay, so I wasn't about to win any style awards but if I dressed up with enough clothes, I could pass for a regular prisoner in case someone came in.

I would wait for the guards to turn up and let them escort me back to the Prize Pool. I would be safe there.

Lily always took good care of her girls, even if she did come across as an ice queen sometimes.

I tugged on a pair of Egara's shorts and tucked the shirt into them. I completed my disastrous appearance with a cap.

I checked myself in the mirror. This just might work.

There was a loud boom from somewhere in the prison and I spun toward the door.

That flimsy door was all that was keeping me from harm right now.

That damn door.

It wouldn't open until seven in the morning.

I moved to the wall beside the door and pressed my back to it. I had nothing to do now but wait.

The shouts and screams turned frantic outside. I clasped my hands over my ears to prevent the worst of it. Along with the rising and falling klaxon it had all the hallmarks of anarchy.

It was while my mind was moving along those tracks that the cell door opened, making the yelling louder than ever, and a figure stepped into the room.

I screamed.

The door slid shut and the figure turned to me. So much for pretending to be a battle-hardened prisoner, I thought. If anyone heard my girlish scream, they would see through my disguise immediately.

Egara lowered his hood and leaned his bed-pole against the wall and crook of the bedframe. I couldn't help but notice it was now smothered in blood.

"W-What's going on?" I said.

"It's a riot," Egara said. "It's a riot and the entire prison has gone to hell."