Alice glared at him. She was by no means stupid, but she knew she was sometimes naïve when it came to people. For the most part, she wanted to believe people were good. A year of serving drinks in a dive bar had taught her differently.
With the help of her coworker, Jen, she’d finally started to learn how to tell which men were harmless and which ones were dangerous. The drunk, handsy ones weren’t great, but the ones you really had to watch out for were the quiet, polite ones—the ones whose charming smiles never met their eyes.
This affable-looking man might’ve stopped the other two before, and he’d been cordial enough with her so far, but she could tell by the coldness seeping from his eyes that he was a bad man. Probably the worst of them all. When cornered, angering men like this was never a good idea.
Play by his rules for now.
He must’ve seen the decision on her face, because he smiled and began speaking. “Our people, and the many races therein, are headed toward extinction. Males outnumber females twenty to one. Many attempts to have children are unsuccessful, and when they are successful, most of the children born are male. Our attempts to grow life using artificial wombs have failed. We’ve been searching endlessly for a race descended from our own that has compatible females.”
Her head pounded. There was so much to take in. “You brought me here to become pregnant and have alien babies because you think humans are descendants of Cle…Clecin—?” Alice said, trying to keep the fear from her voice.
“Clecanians, yes.” Helas corrected. “We have yet to be successful, but after today…I’m hopeful.” He seemed pleased when Alice remained silent. “Long ago, Clecanians mated for life. There was only one person for another. If a Clecanian’s eyes changed color, they knew the person they were with could be their true mate. If markings, called mating marks, appeared around both wrists, then they knew for a fact they’d found their true mate. Historically, true mates had the best chances of any couple to conceive.”
Alice glanced down to his wrists instinctively.
“Don’t worry, I’m not your mate.” He chuckled. “There hasn’t been a mating in over a hundred years. However, when you walked by the room I was in earlier, Luka, the male inside, had quite a reaction to you.” Helas leaned forward, his grin widening. “He recognized you. His eyes changed.”
Alice’s recalled the eerie onyx of the snarling man’s eyes and felt bile rise in her throat. “You brought me here because you think I’m his mate?” she said, glancing to the wall. How was she supposed to handle this news? Not only was he telling her that she was to be bred like an animal, but that the chained, roaring alien a few rooms away was supposed to do the breeding.
“I brought you here to be artificially inseminated and studied just like any other test subject. The fact that Luka recognized you is purely coincidental and highly interesting. I think you two have a better shot at creating life than any other beings in our facilities. And I think if you do turn out to be his mate, we’ll have proven that human females should be considered a subspecies of Clecanians and taken seriously as a viable alternative to the females already living here.”
Helas rose from his seat suddenly, causing Alice to stiffen.
“This is what we’re going to do,” he began matter-of-factly. “Every day, you will be taken to his room, where he will be chained. I’d like for you to sit with him so we can see whether extended proximity makes his mating marks appear.”
“Why will he be chained?” Alice asked quietly, not wanting to upset her captor but needing to understand what kind of danger she’d soon be facing. “Is he violent?”
“He’s been drugged since he got here. We were testing some new medications on him to make it easier to…” a cruel smile spread over his face as he searched for the right word, “obtain samples.”
“Samples?” Alice started, appalled. “You can’t mean—”
Helas smirked then began studying her room, as though the conversation was banal. “I can, and I do, mean samples of his seed. Luka is only half Clecanian. His mother was from another planet, Traxia.”
The briefest flash of disgust passed over his face at the mention of Luka’s mother.
“Members of our organization believe that tainting our ancient bloodlines with that of different species is…wrong. Although I agree, there is no denying that mixed-species Clecanians are walking among us, and with the amount of pure Clecanian births continuing to dwindle, our people are becoming desperate.” He focused on Alice, his words spilling out of him now. “Only a few weeks ago I had a revolutionary idea. I decided perhaps there was a way to alter part of the biological information transferred through procreation. What if we could extract only the Clecanian pieces of DNA and combine them to produce a pure Clecanian sample from a mixed-breed individual?”
Alice felt her skin crawl. How could an alien species that’d made such advances in technology still have such antiquated views?
“Then all we’d have to do to create undiluted offspring would be to alter the mixed-species’ diluted genetic material.” Helas’ chest puffed with pride, but then the corner of his mouth twitched. “I explained this to Luka, tried to convince him to stand with us and aid me in my endeavor, but he declined. He was unwilling, as so many who are brought here are, so I have been forced to do what is necessary to test my theory.”
“So that makes it okay for you to rape him?” Alice whispered.
His smile stayed in place, but his right eye twitched, betraying his calm demeanor. “We do not touch him in
