Slag: Book Four in the Galaxy Pirates Alien Abduction Romance Series (Shifter) Read online

  Escape is futile. The guards clearly got the message I’m to be kept alive, I’ll just be beaten and forced to work under even more of a handicap.

  There are a few males outside the mouth of the mine pushing heavy carts filled with iridescent green ore. They’re all filthy and thin, wearing loincloths—and they’re looking at me like I’m a feast. This isn’t the guards' first time at the rodeo and they’re egging the males on.

  “New meat,” one of them announces as he pokes his gun between my shoulder blades. “May the best male get the first taste.”

  Taste? Does he mean that literally? Are these miners cannibals, or is the guard talking about sex?

  “Use her, but don’t kill her. Ryone wants her back in one piece,” the guard amends.

  Okay, so they won’t eat me. Maybe this is worse—it will be torture. It’s okay, I tell myself. I see pickaxes. I’ll find a way to end my misery soon enough.

  The guards haul me to the mouth of the mine and push me inside with a rough shove and some filthy speculation about what these animals are going to do to me.

  Once I’ve crossed from the weak sunlight into the shade of the mine and am stumbling down the steep ramp leading deep into the soil, males of all sorts converge on me.

  There must be twenty of them circling me, arguing, getting ready to fight for first dibs on me. Most are humanoid, some are different colors with vastly different facial features, but they all have two things in common—the look of unbridled lust in the shine of their eyes and the sneers on their lips. Is there no honor or respect in any of these males? Were they all like this to begin with or is this the effect of the harsh mine environment?

  A hot stab of fear spikes through me followed almost instantly by a shiver of revulsion as I get a good look at the disgusting aliens tightening their circle around me.

  “I get her first,” a big one says. His mouth makes grunting sounds, but the subdural translator my abductors implanted behind my left ear continues to translate all the alien languages I hear into English.

  “Leave the female alone,” an older male with almost translucent skin says from the periphery. I wait to see if he’ll try to intervene, but even if he tried, he’s no match for this mob.

  “We’ll fight you for her,” two hideous males with gaping holes for mouths say as they square off in front of the first guy.

  A loud noise, somewhere between a grunt and howl echoes up from deep in the bowels of the earth.

  “Slag,” one of the uglies says, his tone full of contempt, and . . . fear?

  The frenzied action around me stops as the two guards at the entry step back out into the dim sunlight. Every head in the vicinity swivels toward the depths of the cave.

  I thought the males around me were big. This male is almost a foot taller and his shoulders eight inches wider than anyone else here.

  The first thing I notice are his glowing green eyes. Sooma Ryone said this was a green salt mine. Whatever its use, it’s obviously a glowing green substance that fills the metal ore carts and glistens with tiny green speckles from the black stone walls. Slag’s eyes are the color of the salt.

  His skin is green, too, from the top of his bald head to the bottom of his rag-covered feet. It looks rough and impermeable. He’s lumbering at a run, his eyes scanning the space, assessing the sex-starved males, the brewing fight, and then his eyes swing to me.

  He stops mid-stride, looks me up, then down, then up again, then lets out an angry noise that’s a cross between a bellow and a roar. Terrified, I cower back as far as the rock wall behind me will allow.

  His fists are big as Easter hams as he enters the fray of lust-crazed males surrounding me. Once he’s knocked several of them aside like bowling pins, he backs toward me, his actions laying claim as if he owns me.

  My eyes dart to a pickaxe lying on the rocky floor nearby. This nightmare that is my new reality is racing from bad to worse and I become more desperate to end this. I wonder if I can reach the axe while all eyes are on the life-or-death battle. I feel helpless trying to envision how to use the tool to kill myself. When I realize what I have to do, I’m ashamed to find I don’t have the courage.

  Within a minute or two, twelve males are on the ground. None are dead, but Slag’s shoulders are still bunched, ready to attack as his head swivels, looking for any other comers.

  “You have to sleep sometime,” one of the males at the periphery goads. “You can’t keep her to yourself forever.”

  Slag grunts, then faces me, leans down, tucks his shoulder to my midriff, hefts me up, grabs a pickaxe, and carries me into the dark recesses of the cave.

  Where before I felt calm detachment as I planned my own demise, now panic burgeons inside me like a rising tide. This guy’s humongous and his hands are lethal weapons. If all those animals at the mine’s opening were felled so easily, how am I supposed to escape him? My body freezes in terror as I fully comprehend there is no way out of this.

  The tunnel seems to go on forever as it forks every couple hundred feet. Although I arrived by spaceship and the guards carry laser weapons, the mine is lit by substandard old-fashioned illumination that barely casts light onto the black walls.

  Deeper we go until we haven’t passed another miner for long minutes. My captor is silent and not even breathing hard as he carries me further into the subterranean mine.

  My emotions are spinning from fear to feeling resolved to my initial plan to end things on my own terms. As I bump along, his shoulder jabbing my belly with every step, I try to weigh my options.

  Eventually, he sets me down and inspects me the moment my feet touch the rocky floor. I back away from him until I hit the rock wall.

  He’s leaned to my level, and while he’s assessing me I take his measure. His features are an odd combination of brutish intelligence. Despite his grunts and apparent lack of speech, there’s clearly a sentient being hiding inside him.

  He understood enough to come running when the free-for-all started. Perhaps I can talk sense to him, plead with him.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” I say as I wonder if I’m doing this wrong. Maybe I should royally piss him off to get him to snap my neck and put me out of my misery.

  There are no women down here. Am I crazy to waste my breath? What sex-starved male of any species wouldn’t be tearing my clothes off within seconds?

  He sniffs me again, then pets my head with his humongous palm. I’m shocked, then feel a surge of relief as I watch him attack the black walls of the cave with his pickaxe as he mines green salt.

  It’s a laborious process as he chips at the hard stone wall, lets the black rock fall to the ground, and salvages the green specks. He’s mining a thick vein, and follows it deeper into the stone.

  He must hear something down the passage we entered from, because he pauses for a moment, looks into the darkness, gently grips my upper arm, and scoots me behind him. He stands taller and puffs out his chest, pickaxe in hand, prepared to take on all assailants in an effort to protect his property.

  He grunt-growls at whoever’s in the corridor, his manner so aggressive I hear them leave, then he gets back to work. He’s chipping feverishly at the wall, filling his bucket to capacity.

  I’m numb. All I can manage to do is sit on the floor and just stare at his back as he works. A gong sounds, reverberating through the air in a deep rumble. Whatever this signals, he hefts me onto his back, piggyback style, lifts the full bucket with prodigious strength, and hauls me back toward the opening.

  The catcalls and jeering resume when we merge with the main passage. Slag keeps his body stiff, axe in the air as he approaches the mouth of the mine.

  The guards are there, manning a scale, making certain each miner has met his quota. The males who don’t deliver their share of ore are not only derided, but receive lashes for their noncompliance.

  Sooma Ryone told me I needed to produce green salt. As if this day wasn’t hard enough, now I’m going to receive the beating of my life with something that re
sembles a bullwhip.

  Slag grabs an empty bucket and pours a quarter of his salt into it. Setting the almost-full bucket in front of me, he puts his nearly empty bucket on the scale.

  “Too busy dracking your new toy to do your work?” goads a devilish-looking guard with six gray horns sprouting from his head. “You’ve just earned the lash.”

  The big green male, who certainly could wipe the floor with all the guards at once if engaged in a fair fight, turns his bare back and bends at the waist, accepting the punishment.

  I count as the guard administers ten harsh lashes. The sound of the whip whistling through the air is chilling, making me wince each time it’s wielded. The smack it makes against the poor male’s green flesh sounds so painful it’s as if I can feel the whip’s bite on my own skin.

  Slag keeps his eyes focused, staring straight ahead, acting as if he doesn’t feel it. But I do. He took that lashing for me. I had all day and I didn’t lift a hand to help him.

  If I’m here tomorrow, I’ll do my share. No matter how much of an asshole he may be to me tonight, I’ll try to remember this act of compassion.

  “Miss your quota and it will be twice as many tomorrow, Slag. Drack her on your own time.”

  As soon as his whipping is over, Slag sets the full bucket on the scale. With his hand on the small of my back, he scoots me forward so I can take credit for producing my full allotment.

  After tossing us each two nutrition bars and telling me this is all I get until tomorrow’s quota is met, the guard with what looks like a hundred haphazard sharp teeth says, “You must suck cock like a champion to have Slag take a beating for you.” His gaze never leaves my breasts. “Let’s see if you’re this lucky tomorrow.”

  Slag

  Protect.

  KJ

  Slag lifts me onto his back and retraces his steps to where he was mining all day. Although I try, it’s hard not to press against the welts on his back. But just like the whipping, he acts as if he doesn’t feel it.

  At every intersection where a passage spurs off from the main tunnel, he does a three-sixty, looking for enemies.

  We pass the area where Slag worked all day, then wend deeper into the mine. It’s quiet back here, and darker.

  Until you figure out how to kill yourself or have someone put you out of your misery, you’re going to have to come up with a way to tolerate what’s coming next, I caution myself.

  Out of anyone I’ve met on this shithole planet, from guards to miners to Sooma Ryone himself, Slag has shown himself to have at least a modicum of decency. Although I try to take satisfaction from this thought, it’s little comfort.

  He carries me into a small, almost perfectly-round room that branches off a long corridor. This male may not be able to speak, but he’s canny. This position is easily defensible.

  At the back of the little room is a pile of something. I get the sense this is his sleeping den. That’s his pathetic bed. It couldn’t provide much more comfort than the warm stone floor.

  This planet is hot. Outside in the furiously blowing sand, it was well over one-hundred and ten. Down here, it’s a balmy ninety. Even if I wasn’t staring down the prospect of being raped by the green giant, I’d find everything about this place oppressive.

  Slag eases my feet to the floor, grasps my wrist, and pulls me to the wall. Before I totally freak out, I see a trickle of water sluicing down the stone wall. He cups his hands under a tiny jut in the rock and drinks deeply, then nods his head at me, encouraging me to mimic him.

  The water’s warm and has a mineral tang to it, but it’s wet and quenches a thirst I was too terrified to notice until now.

  He scarfs down his two bars, tipping his head, encouraging me to eat mine. This guy outweighs me by a hundred pounds, maybe more, and he did my entire quota of work today. When I toss him one of my bars he shakes his head and tosses it back to me.

  “You earned it Slag. You not only worked all day, you took ten lashes for me. I won’t be so selfish tomorrow. I’m KJ, by the way.”

  I throw him the extra bar and he dips his head in thanks, then devours it.

  I picture living here, drinking stale water and eating meager rations and mining green salt every day until I die. It makes my eyes sting with tears as despair threatens to overwhelm me. My lips quiver even as I scold myself to stay tough.

  Slag and I ate standing up. He motions for me to take another drink, then offers me the pile on the floor. Upon closer inspection, I see a jumble of ancient leaves and an assortment of rags. The way Slag pointed to them, as if he just invited me to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House, is touching.

  I almost quit breathing when I realize that’s not the only thing that is going to be touching. In the next couple of minutes, this huge, green alien is going to be wanting his payment for providing my quota of green salt at the weigh station today.

  After I sit on the pile of rags, Slag drops to his knees in front of me. I swallow, keeping my jaw tight so I don’t show the fear that’s slicing through me. This is it. Time to pay for his help. The pickaxe leans against the stone wall behind his back. I’d have to go through him to reach it.

  He’s huge, at least two heads taller than me. Tipping his head, he leans close, sniffing. As if that wasn’t good enough, he presses his nose into my shoulder-length blond hair and inhales deeply.

  One thick finger grips a strand of my blond hair and deftly twirls it into a ringlet. He grunts as if he approves.

  He unwinds the filthy rag that covers his sex and his erection springs to life. Slag’s a big male, and his cock is humongous. Long and thick and green, it points at me as its owner continues to visually inspect me.

  He grabs one of the rags on the pile next to me, rises, and returns to the water dripping down the wall. He rinses the loincloth he was wearing, and with the other rag, he gives himself a sponge bath. It’s an interesting juxtaposition as his large hands perform precise actions while cleaning his pebbled green skin. His ablutions completed, he returns to me and kneels, sitting back onto his heels.

  Even though my mouth is dry, I try to swallow. Fear circles the pit of my stomach. I can’t think of a worse nightmare than being taken by a green giant on a pile of filthy rags.

  Cocking his head, he leans an inch closer, staring at my breasts under my t-shirt. If he has superhuman hearing, I’m certain he can hear my heart thumping in triple time. Closing my eyes, I clamp my teeth together and consider just disappearing deep in my mind so I don’t have to be present from here out.

  I learned meditation. It helped me control my emotions in my personal life and on the job as a 911 dispatcher. I was an expert at it when I used to conduct really emotional 911 calls. There was one time I was with a victim every step of the way when a serial rapist broke into her house and was taunting her in the dark. I used my skills to stay calm and help the terrified woman on the other end of the line until the police arrived.

  Right now, though, I can’t slide away into my internal darkness, I guess my level of terror is too high. When my eyes flash open I find him still staring at me.

  He’s on his knees, his ass on his heels, his muscular thighs bulging, his cock beaded with pale green pre-cum.

  He reaches over, and gently lifts my t-shirt, scrunching it into the band of my bra so my midriff is exposed. My heart quits pumping in my chest as I squinch my eyes shut and order myself to breathe. At least he’s not a snake who wants to beat me or cut me to ribbons. I can’t control the fearful mewl that squeaks from my throat, though.

  When he doesn’t touch me, I open my eyes to see his hands lodge above his knees and slide up his textured green skin. It’s as if this is foreplay and he’s readying himself.

  “Please. Don’t do this.” I shake my head, my eyes wide and terrified.

  I wonder if I should make a preemptive strike and try to go down on him. Perhaps a blow job will allow me to escape vaginal penetration from the chartreuse monster swinging from between his hips. I’m paralyzed, thou
gh. I can't move.

  He finally allows himself the pleasure of gripping his cock. His glowing green eyes shutter closed for a moment, then open as his gaze flies to mine.

  His meaty hand closes around his equipment as he palms himself. He can’t maintain his gaze as he again closes his eyes while he strokes his rock-hard member.

  He sighs in pleasure, his hand moving slowly, sensuously. I need to stay alert so I can fight him when his attention shifts from himself to me.

  I decide there’s something terribly wrong with me when I realize I’m turned on. I can’t drag my eyes from the action as he touches himself. Maybe I did find that calm meditative place where I feel detached from everything as if I’m watching from another dimension.

  It’s surprising such a big male could be so gentle, but he’s handling himself with soft, deft touches, stroking from base to tip.