Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance Read online

  She felt a touch to her shoulder and jumped, head jerking up, and blinked through her tears to find someone suddenly sitting beside her. Or maybe they’d been there all along and she just had been too engrossed in her own misery to realize it.

  It was an alien, but it was not so alien-looking. Certainly less strange than the big ones in the helmets. Rua had called them Ankaa. This alien was delicate-looking, willowy and thin and pale, female if her physical anatomy was any indication. In the darkness, Alaina could make out the curves of breasts and hips in a flowing dress, and full lips in an otherwise fragile face, and then there were the antlers. Small and twisting, but prominent all the same just for their strangeness. The alien smiled and offered Alaina a handkerchief.

  “For your tears,” she said softly.

  Alaina took the handkerchief with trembling fingers. “Thanks.”

  The alien tilted her head a little, as if taking Alaina in. “You are human, like the Captain. I’ve never seen another one before.”

  Alaina sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “Yeah. I’m Alaina.”

  “My name is Yfia,” the alien said. “I am Jiayi of the Giedi system.”

  “I have no idea where that is,” Alaina admitted.

  Yfia smiled again. “No, you wouldn’t. Your people are primitive. The Arena will be a challenge for you, I think.”

  “Thanks,” Alaina muttered.

  Yfia made a clicking sound with her tongue. “But the Arena is not all bad, child. For some it holds glory, and a better life. The high families of the Arena offer us riches beyond imagining if we prove worthy of them.”

  Alaina blinked, looking at Yfia again. “Wait. Are you saying you chose to be here?”

  Yfia nodded. “I volunteered to be sold for the honor of my family and my planet.”

  Alaina frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  Yfia’s smile was patient. “The three systems have been at peace for thousands of years because of the Arena. Wars are fought there, politics sorted, and to keep my planet free of tyranny I will fight.”

  Alaina cleared her throat, looking Yfia over. “I hope that works out for you.”

  The alien sat up a little straighter. “I am more dangerous than I look. You are not. You would do well to play to your strengths. You are exotic. Perhaps a house or pleasure slave.”

  Alaina felt nauseated. “I don’t want to be anyone’s slave.”

  Yfia made that clicking sound again. “The only way to gain your freedom now is to fight your way through the tiers of the Arena. And, human child, you would never survive. You are too fragile. Content yourself with a safe, cared-for existence in a high family’s house. And hope that you are not purchased by a whoremonger or a dominus with a cruel heart.”

  Briefly, Alaina thought of going to Rua.

  He’d offered to help her, after all. Was the price of having sex with him so high if he could help place her somewhere she might at least be able to live with?

  But just as quickly she knew she’d made the right decision. She’d have hated herself for letting him compromise her. No. She would push through. She always pushed through. She wiped the tears that remained staining her cheeks away with Yfia’s handkerchief.

  “So there are three systems. Does that mean there are three races? Three houses? What?”

  Yfia shook her head when Alaina offered her back the handkerchief. “You keep that. There are three systems, three races. Many houses.” She put a hand to her breast. “I am Jiayi. Our current masters are Ankaa. The helmets.” She touched her head. “They cannot breathe but in the liquid that covers their home planets. So they must wear the helmets to live.” Then she brushed a hand down her arm. “And the Errai. They are vicious and beautiful. Some of their skin is soft like yours, and some is hard, scales. Their fighters do well in the Arena.”

  Alaina nodded. “I think I’d like to be bought by your people, Yfia, if I have to be bought.”

  Yfia smiled. “My people treat their slaves quite well. And you are nice to look at. This could be your fate, indeed.”

  The idea of being anyone’s slave was repulsive, but Yfia was giving her information, and Alaina knew she had to find a way to use it. If she got purchased by these gentle-looking aliens, maybe she could find a way to escape. Ingratiate herself, get them to trust that she could be happy with them, and then run like hell once she had a better idea how to.

  As she had that thought, the lights flickered on again. Alaina realized that Yfia was gorgeous. By any standard of beauty, the pale alien woman was stunning. Her antlers were white bone, curling gently up from her forehead, short but still somehow elegant. Her skin was pale to the point of nearly glistening. Her eyes wide-set and larger than human eyes, her cheekbones high and mouth expressively full. Alaina wondered how she was supposed to be appealing to the Jiayi when she looked nothing at all like one of them.

  The blast doors opened and Captain Rua and his thugs walked in.

  The captain clapped his hands. “Your attention please, passengers. We’ll be docking with the station momentarily. You’ll have an hour in the baths to get yourselves presentable and then it’s off to market.”

  He looked right at Alaina, and she felt a shiver go through her.

  “Time to make some money,” he announced. “Everyone up and in line please!”

  Yfia touched Alaina’s shoulder and then got to her feet. Alaina followed, tucking the handkerchief into her pocket. “Baths?” she muttered, following the Jiayi woman as she stepped into line with the other slaves.

  All of them, Alaina realized, adhered to Yfia’s descriptions of the three races, except her. There were other tall Jiayi, some with even taller antlers and some with shorter, in colors ranging from the same bone white as Yfia’s to a shiny black. There were other helmets, too, the Ankaa, though they were not as large as Rua’s crewmates. Slender ones and short ones, and Alaina determined some of them were women, though all their faces remained hidden by the helmets. It seemed all these creatures were humanoid, at least so far as Alaina could see, with all the same parts she had, and just different...additions.

  There were a few of the Errai as well, though they looked most like humans to her. Except she could see a patch of scale like on a snake, licking along a cheekbone or a throat or a bare hand. There were maybe twenty slaves in all, by Alaina’s count, once they’d lined up according to Rua’s instructions.

  “Oh yes,” Yfia whispered. “The baths are lovely. They will scrub you clean and dress you for the market.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Yfia looked her over, eyebrows arching delicately. “Well, you’ll be put into a slave’s gown, child. As you ought.”

  “Great,” Alaina muttered.

  She was beginning to realize no matter what Yfia said about this whole process, she was going to have to let go of her dignity if she was going to get through it. Or at least hide it, lock it away in a secret place in her heart, and forget it existed for a while. Same with her pride. But she would not lose these things, no. She would simply hide them until she could make use of them again. She would play the slave, but she would not allow herself to truly become one. These strange creatures would not break her, and she would see Earth again. She told herself this over and over again as they were marched off the ship and onto the gigantic space station that held the Arena.

  Chapter Three

  Yfia explained the Arena to Alaina as they were escorted from the docking bay to the baths. It was in fact an enormous, city-sized space station situated at the boundaries of the three systems. It was divided into four sections. Each of the systems had its own smaller city, and then of course there was the Arena itself, and the market, and that’s where they were now. They wouldn’t be allowed into any of the other sectors of the station until they’d been purchased. And if no one purchased them, they’d become slaves to the Arena and the market itself, doomed to spend their days cleaning blood from the sands, or scrub
bing the bath walls, or the market stalls.

  And the baths were ridiculous.

  Alaina had never seen anything like it. She thought of the tiny spa she’d gone to once when her partner got her a gift certificate for her birthday, and these baths were so far from anything she could have imagined it was almost laughable.

  They were escorted through marble doors, or what Alaina could only think of as marble no matter what material it really might have been. All the walls were the same beautiful marbled black and white and gray, and the floors were the same. The air was thick with moisture, fog and steam pooling around corners and against the ceiling. Frosted glass partitions separated singular bathrooms from the huge, Alaina realized public, bathing areas.

  And there were naked creatures everywhere.

  Where before Alaina could only guess that these aliens had similar anatomy to humans, at least now that supposition was confirmed. And nobody had any modesty whatsoever. Men and women padded completely nude through the hallways, climbed in and out of baths together, and nobody wore a single stitch of clothing. Alaina had not thought of herself as prudish before, but there was such a great abundance of beautiful skin and naked body parts, and she wasn’t used to seeing it all. The Jiayi with their pallor and slender figures, the Errai with scales everywhere, apparently, and even a few helmeted Ankaa moved through the baths, naked save for those helmets. Their skin was slick and shiny and gray, like a shark’s. Alaina would have been lying, though, if she’d said it wasn’t at least somewhat comforting to know that these aliens had the same parts that she did. It made them a little less strange to her, and that was a gift.

  She blushed when she realized most of the bathers were eyeballing the line of slaves as they walked by with some combination of curiosity and hunger in their eyes. She felt like fresh meat. Yfia bowed her head to anyone who looked at them, the gesture somehow at once elegant and obedient. Alaina was pretty sure if she tried something like that it would just end up looking like she had a twitch.

  “Oh, that’s lovely,” Yfia murmured

  Alaina blinked, looking up at her. “What is?”

  Yfia smiled. “The color in your cheeks. That’s marvelous, what a gift.”

  Alaina felt her cheeks grow hotter and cleared her throat. “Um, thanks.”

  Yfia nodded in approval, and they turned a corner into a wide space with several steaming baths. Then a veritable army of attendants poured into the room and Alaina found herself swarmed by three Jiayi women, all of whom insistently and hastily removed her clothes. Though Alaina had never been disrobed in public before, she had to admit these women were experts at it. Before she’d even managed to wrap her head around what was happening, someone had lifted her by the armpits, her feet off the ground, and yanked her pants and underpants right off. She squeaked, alarmed, and then heard that tsk sound and looked over at Yfia, who held up her arms to accommodate the attendants and smiled patiently.

  “Let them do the work,” she suggested. “No one will harm you. You are too valuable.”

  Alaina didn’t feel valuable. She felt violated. But once her bare feet were on the tiled floor, she didn’t put up a fight, just let them tug her shirt off over her head, and finagle her free of her bra. Then she instinctively wrapped her arms around herself, covering up her delicate bits, and stood there turning pink from her toes to the top of her head, no matter that everyone else around her was also naked. Yfia seemed not to care at all, as if she enjoyed just standing there nude, the steam curling around her elegant ankles. Alaina figured if she had that kind of sapling-thin, long figure, she might not mind being naked either. Or maybe it was an alien thing. Blessedly, they didn't stand there long. The attendants wasted no time ushering the line of slaves into various pools, and Alaina found herself walked down a set of marble steps by one of the attendants, after Yfia, and right into warm, milky water. It smelled faintly of honey, or what Alaina imagined was honey. Space honey. And it was thicker than normal water. But the sensation of it slipping over her skin was not unpleasant. She thought maybe this was what a mud bath felt like. Sort of.

  The attendants entered the pools alongside their appointed slave, and Alaina was promptly dunked under the water and brought back up. Then they poured the water over her head, her hair, lathering her body with some kind of soap. She hoped it was soap. She was at least somewhat relieved that her hair was in her face, so nobody could see the scarlet blush in her cheeks, or the likely horrified look on her face as these strangers’ hands rubbed all over her body. Their hands were gentle enough, but the only hands that had ever lathered soap on Alaina’s skin were her own, and it was weirder than anything else. They dunked her head again and when she came up, they started combing her hair back from her face. She saw Yfia nearby, not even standing in the water but floating under her attendants’ ministrations, relaxed as anything.

  Alaina tried to focus on her plan. Let them make her look however they liked, let them dress her and sell her to someone who would be kind, and then she’d find a way to escape. It was all she could do, holding tight to this, and she knew if she let her mind wander too far from it she would be unable to grapple with the reality of it all. Aliens, space, this was nuts. But it was Alaina’s life, and she was going to survive it all. However she had to.

  After the soap, the attendants scrubbed her with a harsher sponge until her skin was pink and raw, and she ached all over. They didn’t seem satisfied until she was wincing away from them, making little pained noises every time the stroke of the sponge slid over her back or arm or shoulder. Then, finally, they relented, walking her up and out of the pool. They patted her dry with soft towels and ran some kind of comb through her hair that dried even as it de-tangled it, until her pale blond hair fell soft and clean down her back. Then finally they lifted a dress to spill over her head.

  The fabric was soft and sheer and white, and Alaina couldn’t decide if she felt more or less naked with it on than without. It didn’t really cover anything, just gave the impression of trying, but when Alaina looked around she saw all the other slaves were dressed in the same manner. At least it was something, a fragile, barely-there veil between her dignity and all these alien eyes.

  Her body was not like the other aliens, even slightly obscured beneath the dress. The Jiayi were all tall and thin like Yfia. The Ankaa were either shorter and squatter, or big and hulking, with seemingly no form in between. Alaina had full breasts and round hips, and that delicate gown illuminated every dip and lift and curve. But Yfia had said she was exotic, and so she hoped that would be enough to get her purchased by someone who would be gullible enough to believe she wanted to be theirs.

  When all the slaves were dressed, they were lined up again. Alaina saw Yfia far ahead of her in the line, but she couldn’t get to her. She was disappointed; Yfia was the closest thing to a friend she had in this world, and she’d hoped to hold onto her for a little longer. But Alaina was used to being on her own, and she wouldn’t let the lack of allies stop her. Then the line started moving, and the attendants herded them out of the baths through a huge, open portcullis that started to lower as soon as the last of them had passed through. The line of slaves snaked along, led around corners and down another corridor, and then finally up a set of stairs.

  At the top of the stairs the attendant took Alaina’s arm, and it was for the best because Alaina tripped over the hem of her gauzy dress when she saw what awaited them: the Market. Through the pillars of the bathhouse — and Alaina realized this must have been the rear of the bathhouse itself — a bustling business center sprawled. A veritable city within the space station itself, and rising up in the distance a set of four towers Alaina figured must be the Arena.

  Throngs of people crowded the market, all the way up to the steps of the bathhouse, and Alaina saw slaves, dressed as she was, being led up onto a dais, then onto blocks, and people were just shouting out amounts. Then the slaves were dragged off the blocks, and they disappeared into the crowd. Alaina felt
her heart rate kick up towards panic at the idea of being put onto one of those blocks. But the attendant didn’t turn her towards the dais. Instead, she led her down another corridor.

  And there was Yfia, right ahead of her.

  Relived, Alaina made a little hissing noise at the Jiayi woman’s back. “Yfia. Where are they taking us?”

  Yfia’s white antlers turned as her head did, and she smiled when she saw Alaina. “Ah, as I thought. We are being taken to silent auction, for the high families. They do not sully themselves in the common crowd at the blocks.”

  “So this is good?”

  “It means we will go to a high family. And we will be sold at a much higher price. If we are sold, of course.”

  Right. If they were sold. If they weren’t, Alaina imagined she’d be scrubbing the bathhouse pools or maybe she’d even end up scrubbing new slaves herself. That appealed to her less than being scrubbed. Alaina peeked around Yfia and saw there were three more slaves ahead of her in the line. So only five of them were being put up for bid for the high families, whatever those were.

  They were led into a room, and Alaina’s breath caught in her throat when she saw the window. As before, on Rua’s ship, just the sight of the universe turning all around her was astonishing. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to seeing it. And she’d almost been able to forget they were on a space station at all. But there it was, all that black and all those stars twinkling along, tiny pinpricks of light on the dark fabric of a galaxy Alaina had no name for. Except she knew that it was far away from the Milky Way. And far away from Earth.

  The attendants lined them up side by side in front of a long curtain separating

  one half of the room from another. The carpet was soft beneath Alaina’s bare feet, and other than the window and a pair of lamps attached to either wall, the room was empty save for whatever awaited them on the other side of the curtain. Alaina looked down the line to see Yfia, two more Jiayi, and one female Ankaa, judging by the faint outline of breasts and the smaller, stockier figure beneath the gauzy dress. She wondered if they had hair beneath those helmets.