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
