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
