Very quickly, I discovered that I hadn’t been the only sex worker among the group, which wasn’t shocking, I guessed. Camden, a blonde Adonis in his mid-twenties, had mentioned it first, and then Pierce, a red-haired woman in her thirties. I couldn’t get my voice to work to spit out the words of what I was or had been, but I caught their gaze. We all shared the same hollow-eyed expression.
Soft conversation filled the room, but I didn’t pay attention to it. I should have. We were literally all in this together. However, my thoughts remained on the drakcol. The man was massive. I’d never seen someone so large before. And those eyes. Fuck me. Why had they been so large and looked so innocent?
He couldn’t be, obviously.
He’d known my name. How? Why? Dontilvynsan hadn’t known the others' names, but he’d known mine. He’d said he had Teddy. Had Teddy told him? I gripped my legs tighter as I pushed my face into my knees. I didn’t want to be taken. I’d had enough of that.
Seth.
I missed him. Though if I was honest with myself, I missed what he represented. Home. Earth. A time before this hellish nightmare had happened. I wanted to go back, but the past couldn’t be overwritten.
One second I was thinking about Seth, and the next the engines had shut off and the shuttle was utterly still. I blinked, looking around. I had no idea what had happened between point A and point B. It was like time had jumped. Which was stupid. And it didn’t matter. Survival. That was what mattered. I looked at the other humans. All of us were tired and scared. We’d been ripped from home, taken from people we loved. No one wanted to be here.
I stood. “We all need to stick together.”
Camden nodded, arms crossed, making his muscles bulge. “These drakcol don’t seem bad.”
The older man, Brad, scoffed, his already harsh features looking even more so. “We’ve all thought that before.”
Pierce said, “True. But we won’t know until we go, and it’s not like we have a choice.”
That made all of us fall silent.
Choice. None of us had been able to make a single choice in the last two years. Many of us who’d been taken had been sold to restaurants and eaten as exotic tastes. Others had been sold to fighting rings and had died at the hands of far larger aliens. More to brothels. More to the homes of the rich. And even more had been sold off-world.
Our choices had been stolen time and time again, and here we were with no choice once more.
The door opened, and Dontilvynsan and another drakcol stepped inside. The second one appeared female. She wasn’t as tall as Dontilvynsan nor as muscular, though she was still a sight bigger than me at probably the mid-six-foot range. Her dusty red scales had pink and orange skin around them, and her black hair was cut short on the sides and much longer on top.
Dontilvynsan introduced her as Commander Bimwoxcol, then said, “This way. Someone is waiting to explain everything to you.”
Someone. Perfect. Nothing like a mystery when you’d been abducted by aliens and sold into slavery. It wasn’t like our whole lives were a giant fucking mystery.
Dontilvynsan paused and stared at me, head cocked. For the first time, I noticed his pierced ears. They looked like elf ears—not Tolkien, they were longer than that, but not quiteWorld of Warcraftelves either.
A small green stone hung from the golden ring at the pierced tip, and studs trailed down the length to his lobe, which had longchains that also ended with rough green stones. A golden cuff accented the length of his ear.
His tail flicked, and my gaze widened. He had a tail. Interesting. I’d never seen any drakcol with one on a screen. The dark purple tuft on the end was like a lion’s, and the entire appendage was covered in scales like the rest of him.
“It’s a human,” he said, looking directly at me.
“What?”
“The person waiting to speak to you. He’s a human. My youngest brother Prince Kalvoxrencol’s mate.”
Well, that was something. I would rather speak to another human. A single glance at the group assured me they agreed as well. Another human would understand more than an alien ever would.
He motioned for me to exit.
My hands curled into fists as I shuffled past him, but he didn’t touch me, which made me relax. The bay door opened, and I stepped out. I spotted not one, but two humans. Both were familiar. My eyes skittered over the tall human with short black curls. Teddy. He called my name, but my gaze was riveted to the other human, a husky, average man standing next to a gray-blue drakcol.
My heart thumped so loud that it reverberated in my ears. Every dream I’d conjured hadn’t done justice to my childhood friend or my first love. His soft brown hair brushed his forehead. His round face was covered with a shocked expression, his deep brown eyes wide. He was wearing a hoodie, like he always did.
“Seth,” I cried.
A choked sob escaped from my lips. I was running across the sprawling room before I’d even thought about it. Seth met me halfway. We crashed into each other. I cried as I wrapped my arms around his solid frame, burying my face in his chest.
He gripped my back. “Vince, what are you doing here?”
