I’m on my own now – alone except for these three Aurelians.
As I’ve always done, I need to use everything I have to my advantage.
I see the concern on Kitos’ face, and I realize this is my first chance.
"It's… It’s okay,” I murmur to him. “It’s okay, Kitos. You didn’t hurt me."
Then, I lean up for a kiss...
Slam!
…and he throws me into the brig.
Fuck!
I mean, I knew he would – and Kitos could have tossed me in there so hard that I’d have hit the other wall. Instead, he gave me the equivalent of a light push. It does the trick though – and he slams his palm against the button to seal the doors behind me with a hiss.
So, this is it.
The punishment brig.
I turn and examine the chamber I’ve been locked inside.
It's a room barely long enough to lie down in. There's a small bed in here – with the world's thinnest mattress on it. Sadly, though, this isn't much of a step down from my apartment back on the planet we’ve just left. When you spend all your income on plotting to escape, you don't have anything left over to spend on creature comforts. Sometimes I even sacrificed food to save more money.
I gently cross my arms, and a smile comes to my face.
Things look bleak – but maybe they only look that way.
Most people would be hopeless right now – but I’m not most people.
Okay, so I’m trapped on a spaceship with three huge, dominant aliens – and I’m facing twenty years in prison if they get me to their planet. If they succeed, I'll be a middle-aged woman by the time I get out. I'll have spent my entire youth, and my best adult years, inside a jail cell with other criminals.
But that’s not going to be an option.
I just need time. If I can get enough time, I know I can make these aliens break. The only problem? Thanks to the otherworldly technology of the Orb-Drive, it’ll take just days to get to the Aurelian home world of Colossus. What can I do to either delay this voyage – or accelerate my plan to break this triad?
I’ve got a trick under my sleeve, but I don’t know how to deploy it without being caught. I prepared for this exact moment, and everything hangs in the balance of a blackmarket augmentation surgeon who took a month of my wages and nearly killed me.
I looked around desperately. The cell is drab, even by the standards of Aurelian warships, which are notoriously spartan. Aside from the bed, there's also a little toilet in the corner – but no window. No way to gaze out into the vastness of space. If it wasn’t for the lurching feeling in my stomach – as we leave the gravitational pull of the planet below – I wouldn’t know whether we were on the ground, adrift in space, or orbiting a different world entirely.
But that’s part of the reason for this punishment brig. It’s deliberately designed like this. In fact, I know there's also a slightly more comfortable room for prisoners on this ship – to gently encourage good behavior
No such comfort for me. For trying to escape, I'll be relegated to this horrible little cell for most of the entire trip back to Colossus – unless I can think of something.
All I know is that Colossus is at least two days away, even by Orb-Shift. This Reaver is an attack ship, which is capable of only short interstellar jumps. Larger ships could do the trip in one single jump – but the Reaver will take at least three, with course correction between each one.
However, without an Orb-Drive, it would take at least twenty-five days to reach Colossus, relying on standard space-faring drive.
A chill suddenly goes through my body. I’m getting an idea…
Firstly – we’ve all heard about Orb-Shifting being... unreliable lately. It’s almost as if those eerie, glowing, blue-black balls of otherworldly energy have consciousness of their own; and they’re getting riled up lately.
Secondly, sometimes you can reliably encourage things to be unreliable, if you catch my drift.
Yes, this is definitely the beginning of a plan – and, luckily, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve to implement it.
All I need is time. Just imagine – with twenty-five days, rather than just two, I could have these three powerful warriors eating from my hand. I know I could. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s how to manipulate men – even towering, dominant, alien men.
And that’s all they are, really, isn’t it? Aurelians are just huge men – and men always think with their cocks. When the blood rushes between their legs, it leaves none left for them to use in their brains.
I lick my lips – shivering in anticipation.
There’s more to my plan than mere survival. It would also give me a sense of triumph to seduce these three Aurelians, the way I did the previous triad. It would prove to me that the first time wasn’t a fluke – that for all their muscles, and weapons, and haughty demeanor, I can still prove myself more powerful than them.
And there’d be other fringe benefits, I’ll admit. As much as I’m ashamed to admit it, I've ached for their species ever since I spent those weeks in the harem. Now I’ve lost everything, there’s no point in trying to deny my desire for these powerful aliens. No human man could ever compete with the feeling of ultimate surrender you experience when you have three powerful, dominant warriors that want to ravish and seed you.
And as much as I try to pretend it isn’t true – that Aurelians are all cold-hearted, callous bastards – there’s a dignity and honor to them. Those three who accepted me into their harem weren’t Bonded with me – I wasn’t their fabled ‘Fated Mate’ – and yet they still cared for and protected me.
In fact, the only regret I have in
