“I know you don’t owe me jack, but the least you could do is tell me.”
“You know, for a pet, you do ask a lot of questions. I expected you to have lesser intelligence.”
This little…
Strangle him!
Geblit glanced at her once more. “Your species seems almost as intelligent as mine is.”
“That’s because I am. Humans aren’t idiots. I don’t know why you aliens think that.”
Geblit made a funny noise in his throat. “You’re human…from a Class Four planet. Usually, beings from such planets are uncivilized, dimwitted animals.”
She figured that’s what they thought. The terrarium they had put her in was proof.
“Well, we aren’t.” She turned to face the front of the hovercar, folding her arms as she did. Talk of Earth only made her think of the life she’d been ripped away from.
Her mother and stepfather who’d probably now accepted that they were never going to see her again. The people at her job, her coworkers…she was sure the bank had quickly replaced her and she was probably just a vague memory there by now.
She thought of her one-bedroom apartment that was like an expensive shoebox that she called home. She thought of her grouch of a neighbor on one side who used to complain about the least noise and the deaf old lady who lived on the other side who used to turn her radio up too high…those two never got along and she was always in the middle.
It hadn’t been the greatest of lives but it’d been her life.
Now, her life involved being bought and sold for sex.
“And why would you want an uncivilized dimwitted animal to pleasure you and your wife anyway?” She sliced her gaze to Geblit. It was hard not to think of the mechanics of sharing a bed with him and his wife and the thought alone made her want to puke again. “Who would want a barbarian in their bed?”
She cocked her head at her utterance.
She took it back.
She wouldn’t mind a barbarian in her bed. Or two.
“I heard a rumor.”
That caught her attention and her gaze snapped to Geblit.
“What rumor?”
“That your species, though dim, is pleasurable in the sheets. You were taken for the Tasqals originally. They only have the best sex pets. I thought you would be a good purchase.”
She had no idea who the Tasqals were but the fact that she’d been taken away from her life on Earth on the mere basis that she was stupid but a good fuck made her lip curl in disgust.
“How did you know what I was anyway?”
Most of the aliens that came by her terrarium couldn’t figure out what species she was. From the little she could hear through the transparent shield, they’d made guesses, all incorrect.
“Never mind that,” Geblit replied.
How did she know he was going to reply with something like that?
Leaning back, she processed what he’d just said.
She’d been taken from Earth on the sole basis that she’d be a good sex pet.
Damn.
And the worst thing about it, Earth had no defenses against these crimes. It wasn’t like she could find her way back and then make the smugglers pay for what they did. Earth was still having problems even landing rockets on the dark side of the moon, much less across the galaxy.
Ha.
If someone had told her she’d become a victim of human trafficking, intergalactic human trafficking at that, she’d have brushed it away and continued in her cosy life as an investment banker.
High-risk portfolios she could deal with. High-risk alien adventures? That was completely different.
What was she going to do? Kill her enemies with high interest rates?
“I should have known that zookeeper would have ventured to best me,” Geblit murmured, pulling her away from her thoughts.
“He bested me, too, you know.”
Geblit looked at her as if confused and she opened her mouth to explain to him that being kept like property hadn’t exactly been her choice, but decided not to.
Slamming her mouth shut, she sighed.
“I believe now that you are illegal goods. The Tasqals must have smuggled you without a permit from the Interplanetary Union.”
Geblit groaned, his head balloon pulsing. “Troublesome, troublesome.” Then he brightened. “But Riv will fix it. He will take you.”
“And you’re sure about that?”
“Positive.”
“You still haven’t told me anything about this Riv. You keep going around it. Why?”
Geblit glanced at her, giving her the side-eye. “I do not have to explain myself. Riv owes me a favor.”
With that, Geblit focused ahead, his mouth closing into a line as thin as a thread.
Was that all she was going to get from him?
Great.
Head hanging over the hovercar once more, Lauren stared at the blur of the yellow-orange grass as the hovercar sped along.
She was a pet.
She was exactly like a dog.
The entire circumstances weren’t lost on her.
She was in a box. Bought. And she’d been bought only for her owner to discover that the “child” they’d bought her for didn’t want her. So now she was heading to the shelter, or sanctuary to be precise.
Life couldn’t continue like this.
A year in a zoo, treated like an animal, and now this.
Lauren settled back in the box, still taking in the blur of the grass beneath the vessel.
To her side, Geblit seemed to be in better spirits the farther they went across the plain. No doubt, he was happy about being able to unload her on his friend soon.
This wasn’t sustainable.
She couldn’t be continuously handed off to new owners every year.
If there was no way back to Earth, that meant she needed to find a new way to survive on her own.
She needed to find a new home.
And maybe, just maybe, despite Geblit’s reluctance to provide information, this could be the opening she was looking for.
Sighing, she straightened her tank top. It had several holes now, but she still adored it.
Lifting her eyes, she saw a speck in the distance.
It started small, almost undetectable, until it began growing.
It was a building. A house, maybe—she was still too far away
