The Alien’s Claim by Zoey Draven
Chapter Forty
Erin had just finished vomiting into the basin Kossira had left for her when she heard familiar footsteps begin to descend the stairs. Erin shivered, feeling her nausea rise again, and she held her breath so that the stench wouldn’t make her hurl again.
Shakily, she climbed to her feet, unsteady and weaving slightly. But it wasn’t Kossira that appeared. It was Tavar and the guard.
This is it, she knew. She thought that it would make her nervous, but all she felt was numbness. Tiredness. When she’d first woken in her prison, she’d only had thoughts of leaving. When she’d learned of Jaxor’s betrayal, she’d only had thoughts of him, memories of him, of them, replaying everything in her mind until she passed out from exhaustion—looking for something that would give her perspective, that would make her understand why he’d done it. And now...
She remembered Kossira’s warning the night before. In her jumbled mind, still feeling the burn of stomach acid at the back of her throat, she tried to recall if Kossira had said to turn right or left after the white door on the Jetutian vessel.
Tavar opened the gate, his lip curling in distaste when he saw her. He hadn’t come since that first day. The days and nights had started to blur together.
Kossira had tried to keep her clean and fed. Most mornings, she brought a fresh basin of water and a clean cloth and wiped down her body. But she was still wearing the tunic and the pants she’d altered at Jaxor’s base. She must reek. Her hair hung in greasy tendrils. Her skin felt tight, stretched.
Tavar’s gaze was like a sharp blade. Erin suppressed the urge to shiver again when he looked at her.
“He did not come for you after all,” was all he said. Humid air whistled into her nostrils at her sharp intake, the words surprisingly cutting. Pain curled in her stomach, her heart thudded pathetically.
“No,” Erin whispered. “He didn’t.”
“It is time,” Tavar said, grabbing her by the arm, the sensation of his strength jarring.
Erin had no choice as he led her out of the dungeon and up the stairs—though she was so out of breath at the top that Tavar was forced to pause. Another dark hallway stretched in front of them. And then another.
She thought the darkness would continue endlessly, but eventually she stumbled out—into fresh air?
She almost cried with delight as a cool breeze brushed across her face, winding through her hair, caressing it like fingers. Air so crisp that it stung her lungs.
And she could see. Moonlight blanketed the dark forest they were in, highlighting dark, towering trees. Erin saw at least forty or fifty males grouped in a clearing.
Erin remembered what Kossira had said, that Tavar had plans to attack the Jetutians that night. Were these his warriors? Most had weapons—long, curving blades with serrated edges, though most looked dull or the metal was chipped. And they weren’t like any Luxirian warriors she’d seen. There was a wild desperation in their eyes.
Tavar didn’t say anything to them as he walked her past, but she felt the way their eyes stayed on her. She wondered if it was the first time they’d ever seen a human.
Erin didn’t know how long they walked, but eventually, the trees began to thin. And wedged beside a tall, towering boulder, a few trees toppled and flattened beneath it, was a spaceship.
She didn’t know what she’d expected, but in her mind, she’d pictured it much, much smaller. For the first time, a piercing of dread stung her belly. How would she ever try and find her way off it? It was massive. In some ways, it seemed larger to her than the Golden City, as big as a mountain, and she craned her neck up to try to see the very top. Standing before it, it took up the entirety of her vision.
Focus, she urged herself. Looking to the night sky, she located the brightest star Kossira had told her about. It hung low on the horizon, to the left of the spaceship.
As they drew closer, she saw that a Luxirian female—not Kossira—was waiting beside another male she didn’t recognize. Erin looked at her, but all she saw in her eyes was a cold determination. Erin wondered what she was doing there, but as she fell into step beside Tavar, it became apparent. She was the next female whose fertility would be restored. Erin wondered if this female knew Tavar’s plan, however. Erin wondered if she knew what the Jetutians did to the females in their care, which Kossira had hinted at.
At the base of the spaceship, Tavar called out suddenly, making Erin flinch. His words echoed around the clearing and Erin breathed in the sharp, cold air once again, closing her eyes.
And in her mind’s eye, she saw Jaxor. Saw those blue eyes she had memorized and felt the way his voice floated over her. How was it possible to ache for someone who had lied to her? But she did.
Longing and grief shivered down her spine, but she pushed the thought of him away, opening her eyes just as a ramp began to snake out from the metal of the ship, eerie and fluid. She’d never seen metal move that way before, as if it were liquid. When Tavar pulled her onto it, she expected her foot to slide right through, but it was solid as he dragged her up, the Luxirian female still at his side and the male guard at their backs.
The forest was quiet, the night clear, and then what few sounds there were fell away as they walked through a shimmering veil at the top of the ramp. They were in the belly of the spaceship and when Erin craned her neck behind her, she saw the air move, the darkened forest right there, but she couldn’t hear it. She swore she saw familiar blue eyes in the darkness, but she knew it was just a trick of the light, bouncing off whatever technology the Jetutians had placed there.
Ascending the ramp had once again winded her and her knees trembled, unused to the physical exertion. Tavar jerked her forward and she stumbled, falling to the floor of the ship.
“Get up,” Tavar hissed, but he pulled her up anyways without waiting. Erin scrambled to regain her footing, walking quickly, and then a moment later, they were before a door flanked by two Jetutians.
Seeing them brought a wave of fear. She hadn’t seen one since the Pit. But she saw their mottled grey and green skin, their feet ending in clawed talons, long reptilian tails dragging across the floor. They looked similar to Krevorags, but the difference was in their size. They were much larger and their textured flesh looked thick, like a crocodile’s.
Yet, these two Jetutian guards had blue eyes, like most Luxirians she’d seen. They allowed them entry with narrowed gazes and behind the door were more Jetutians. Three of them.
Erin wanted to flee. Her heart was pounding so fast in her chest now, panicked, her instinct for survival beginning to kick in. There were in a sterile, mostly empty room. Like a lab. Or a medical bay. Again, Erin couldn’t help but glance over the Luxirian female that accompanied them. Her blue eyes were wide, greedily drinking in the room.
The Jetutian dressed in green, with plates of gold armor covering his chest and the front of his thighs, looked at her and rasped out words that slithered across her skin. He looked annoyed or angry, gesturing to her before glaring at Tavar. By the way the other two Jetutians sunk back, it was obvious that this was the male in charge of the spaceship, the one with whom Tavar had been making deals.
Tavar spoke something back in the same language. He’d seemed to have received the Jetutian language implant as well as the English one.
The Jetutian made a chuffing sound and then his eyes were back on her. Those blue eyes that seemed to crawl over. He asked her, in strangely accented English, “Where are the others?”
Erin’s chin lifted slightly, but she said nothing.
Pain exploded across her cheek as the Jetutian struck her and Erin fell from Tavar’s grip, onto the floor of the medical bay.
“Where are the others?” the Jetutian hissed.
Her head swam, dizzy, and she tasted blood in her mouth. She’d bitten her cheek when he struck her. As her gaze refocused, she saw a familiar pattern etched into the floor. The one Kossira had drawn in the dirt of her cell. The pattern ran across the room, but stopped at a closed door to the left, not the one they’d come in from.
Tavar dragged her back up. The Jetutian’s gaze was still leveled at her and she said, her voice husky, “They are mated to Ambassadors of Luxiria. I doubt you can reach them now. There is only me.”
A half-truth. Crystal and Bianca still remained, though Crystal had disappeared with Cruxan into the wild lands shortly after Jaxor had taken her.
The Jetutian seemed impatient and easily angered.
The Luxirian female spoke for the first time, in English.
“She is here now. A human female for one Luxirian female healed. That was the agreement, Po’grak,” the female said.
“Laccara,” Tavar warned quietly, but the female never looked away from the Jetutian, whose name she now knew was Po’grak.
The one who’d unleashed the virus on Luxiria? The one who’d killed Jaxor’s mother? The one he’d been willing to trade Erin to, in order to get his revenge?
His eyes were narrowed. Erin thought that he might strike Laccara as well, but he seemed to restrain himself, as if striking a Luxirian female was much worse than striking a human one.
“That agreement was made when we were promised at least two human females,” Po’grak hissed. “You bring one. Therefore, you will need to pay for the other human in crystals if you cannot bring her here.”
She was being bargained over like a commodity, like a roll of silk in the marketplace. Tavar’s fists squeezed into Erin’s arm and she bit her lip to keep from crying out. The Mevirax leader didn’t even seem to realize he was hurting her.
But when he said, “Very well, Po’grak,” his voice was steady and even sounded…apologetic.
Po’grak’s back straightened, his tail slapping loudly on the floor. “Good.”
“I will send my guard for the crystals. A vonne.”
Po’grak’s eyes narrowed, “Two vonnes of crystals.”
Dread shot through Erin. How many times could they travel to Earth with that amount of Luxirian crystals? Could they? How many more women could they take? Erin had always been under the impression that only a significantly sized crystal was enough to power a spaceship to Earth.
“That will clean out most of our stores,” Tavar argued.
Po’grak replied, “It would not have been necessary if you brought the other human as promised.”
Tavar made a show of sighing. He paused, as if thinking over the offer. Po’grak’s eyes glinted in the light, his greed evident. Erin wondered how such a male had ascended to leadership when his emotions were so plainly obvious.
“You will start administering the vaccine to Laccara while they are retrieved then,” Tavar said, somehow making it seem like both a demand and a question.
Po’grak’s slim, almost nonexistent lips thinned. Then he gestured to one of the other Jetutians in the room, who went over to the far wall. The same shimmering veil from the entrance covered a hidden compartment there. When he reached his hand through it, Erin heard a clink and then the Jetutian stepped away, a clear vial between his clawed talons, filled with a black liquid that looked thick like molasses.
Laccara stepped forward as the Mevirax guard went from the room, back down the long hallway, off the ship to presumably retrieve the crystals. Tavar stayed, watching as Laccara sat down on the slab of the metal table in the room. She seemed confused when the Jetutian made her lie down, even more so when he strapped her limbs down tight, but she didn’t seem to be afraid.
“How long will it take?” Tavar asked, his voice rumbling, sounding impatient and annoyed. Erin saw the way his eyes strayed to the shimmering compartment on the far wall when Po’grak was not looking.
Po’grak didn’t answer him. Erin watched the other Jetutian fill a slim black device with the liquid from the vial, the end of which pointed into a thick, shining needle.
Laccara’s anticipation filled the room. Erin could almost feel her longing as the Jetutian slipped the needle into the softened flesh of her hip.
Then her body jerked, something changed in her face, and Erin went pale as a bloodcurdling scream escaped her throat.
Tavar dropped her arm in shock as Laccara’s body began to tremble and convulse, even as the Jetutian continued to inject more of the thick molasses into her.
“What is this, Po’grak?” Tavar demanded, his brows furrowed in anger, stepping forward.
“It is part of the changing,” Po’grak replied, looking not at all concerned with her screams. He bared grey and sharp teeth when he studied Tavar. “Your own female did the same. It will pass. Eventually.”
It was obvious the Jetutian male delighted in her pain, in her screams. Erin saw Tavar’s fist clench, perhaps the only emotion he showed that made Erin believe he cared for Kossira at least slightly.
Laccara’s screams were getting louder and louder the more the Jetutians flooded her with the vaccine, her body thrashing on the slab of metal, her limbs twisting against the restraints the other Jetutian had put on her. Now Erin understood why they’d been necessary. Horror filled her, freezing her in place.
“Stop this!” Tavar shouted, approaching Po’grak. “This is not—”
“This is exactly what you wanted!”
“Nix!” Laccara screamed when Tavar approached her. She didn’t want Tavar to intervene. “Nix, leave it!”
Suddenly, a loud boom reverberated around the spaceship and Erin lost her balance, stumbling to the floor when it swayed too much.
Po’grak went dangerously still, then his eyes cut to Tavar, fury rising in them. “What did you do?”
For a moment, Tavar looked just as surprised and furious as Po’grak. “I did nothin—”
Another thunderous boom came, this one so loud and so powerful that Po’grak lost his footing, and vials and equipment rattled and shook from their hidden places.
The Jetutian leader stalked to the door leading to the hallway, throwing it open. Beyond it, Erin saw hordes of Jetutian males racing down the hallways, armed, pouring from the spaceship in all directions, down towards the shimmering entrance they’d come through.
Where had they all come from? she wondered, dizzy with dread, wondering how she would escape now with so many roaming about.
Po’grak yelled something at them and they sped their pace at whatever order he’d given them. When he turned to face Tavar, even Erin could sense his fury.
“You think to betray me?” he rasped, stalking towards the Luxirian male. “You would be nothing without me!”
Another explosion came. Erin cried out, lurching forward, her eyes catching on the pattern pressed into the flooring. Follow the hallway until the white door, Kossira said. But was it right or left to the grey door?
The Jetutian hovering over Laccara lost his balance with that last explosion and the device he’d poured the vaccine into tore from her flesh, dark blue blood spraying in its wake, and it skidded across the floor. Erin’s breath went shallow, seeing the black liquid leak from the tip of the needle. She needed to get to it.
Before she knew it, Po’grak lunged for Tavar, who was hurriedly unstrapping an unmoving Laccara from the table as the third Jetutian in the room reached for a blade at his hip.
This is my chance, Erin thought. As a fourth explosion rocked the spaceship, so much so that she thought it lifted from the ground only to thud violently back down, she used the distraction to push herself from the ground, the muscles in her weak arms almost giving out on her with the effort.
She lunged for the vaccine as Po’grak reached for Tavar. She heard a gasp of air and when she looked, Po’grak had a curved blade jutting from his side—right between the plates of his armor—just as the Jetutian lingering in the corner knocked Tavar off his feet.
Erin didn’t wait a moment more. She scrambled across the floor—keeping her grip on the vaccine—towards the door to the left. She threw it open, her heart thundering in her throat, and saw there was a darkened hallway stretching before her, the same circular pattern Kossira had drawn out printed into the floor. At the end of it, she saw Jetutian males racing past, but they didn’t see her. She kept to the shadows.
Without a backwards glance, as piercing, guttural yells and cries and the ringing of blades began to echo throughout the spaceship, Erin bolted down the hallway, the black device pressed tightly in her grip.
