His Mate to Keep by Ivy Sparks
2
Xavier
A trap door slid open,and I dropped five feet. I landed hard on the stone floor, but jumped back up, crouched and ready to fight. Long experience in this hellhole told me to never relax my vigilance for an instant.
I hunkered in the metal waiting chamber too small for my body, and I surveyed the battle room ahead of the barred door. Blood and muck stained the smooth ground. The same stone rose in vertical walls without a trace of a crack anywhere. I had checked more than once for such a crack, or any sort of structural weakness. There was no way out of this pit.
Somewhere up there, out of sight, the experimenters were watching. They would throw me into this battle room when they wanted to test my fighting abilities against another species. Maybe this test would be the one that finally killed me, and I wasn’t sure I’d even mind. All this fighting was beginning to feel pointless.
My eyes darted over the floor. Various weapons lay scattered among dismembered limbs—the forgotten relics of past fights. Though I preferred to fight barehanded, I never ignored an advantage when I had one, especially since every now and then, the experimenters would throw a real challenge at me.
When I was first brought to this laboratory, I used to try to reason with my opponents. I would try to spare their lives with the hope of making an ally. It never worked. The longer I was trapped here, the more I came to realize I was completely alone.
Now I didn’t bother. I finished my opponents off as quickly as possible. That was the kindest thing I could do for them, because the experiment didn’t end until someone died. The sooner I got it over with, the sooner I could go back to my cell in peace.
Another trapdoor snapped open across the battle room. A giant Zort crashed to the floor of its own waiting chamber. Stone blocks covered its skin, making it bulky and cumbersome. As it fell, it landed on its back and writhed as it tried to stand up.
Both our chamber doors opened, and the battle room was ours.
I rocketed out and snatched a huge Sik blade from the gore. Before the Zort could right himself, I plunged into its waiting chamber and drove the blade across his throat. The blade scraped against the rocks and his body shattered into rubble. He never got to stand up.
I dropped the blade and sauntered across the battle room. The experimenters didn’t want a long, drawn-out show anyway. They just wanted the weakest of us dead, and that was what they got. Fighting was what I was born to do. I wasn’t sure how many more times I needed to prove that to them, whoever they were.
I suppose I could have waited until he stood up and faced me in a fair fight. The battle room was the closest thing to entertainment that I had anymore, but I couldn’t toy with another prisoner, even to break the crushing boredom. I wouldn’t want one of them toying with me if our positions were reversed.
Maybe one of these days I would meet someone in the battle room who could put me down and end my misery. When that happened, I hoped they would do it quickly.
I spent enough time here to know where to go next. I stood in the middle of the battle room and waited as a sentinel entered from a hidden doorway, wheeling a glass chamber behind it.
The sentinel was robotic, a remote-controlled android that allowed the experimenters to interact with their prisoners without risking any bodily harm to themselves. I could tear the thing down, but then three more would replace it. At this point, I knew not to bother.
The sentinel pointed at the glass chamber with one of its four metallic arms. Its bird-like feet clacked on the floor as it approached, a noise I had grown to hate.
Somehow, the glass was both fluid and solid, but the sentinels were the only ones who could make the chambers open or change shape. The sentinel touched the chamber, and a rectangular opening appeared.
I stepped inside and glared as it closed shut behind me. I’d seen enough prisoners lose their limbs trying to stop the opening from closing, so I knew better than to try it myself.
The sentinel’s voice box cracked, and a staticky voice said, “Another outstanding kill, Xavier.”
I grunted. The experimenters’ hollow praise no longer held any value for me. At one time, I thought if I could impress them, then they’d treat me differently. But nothing I did changed the fact that they would always return me to my prison cell.
I kept still and waited while the sentinel grabbed the corner of my case and wheeled me away in it.
The sentinel navigated between cells populated with perhaps every species of alien in the galaxy. I never knew before I came here that so many species existed. I wondered briefly where I, a Kavian, ranked among them. But what did it matter? I could be number one, but I was still a prisoner.
After a few minutes, the sentinel stopped in front of an empty cell. I had a moment’s realization that the cell next to this one was empty too. The sentinel then slid my container right up against the glass of my prison and the two objects merged. The transport container’s front end disappeared into the cell wall, essentially making an opening between the two chambers. Whatever technology this was, I would have been amazed in any other circumstance. But here, it was just routine. An advanced way to keep me permanently quarantined from the outside halls—and isolated from any viable escape route.
I crawled through and entered the glass cell. Same story, different day. Nothing about this place surprised me anymore, not even how much I got used to it. Given enough time, I could get used to anything. This place proved that.
The sentinel pulled out the container as the cell glass instantly closed, before heading off and leaving me. Now came the part where I got my reward for complying with the experiment. A compartment in the sterile, white floor opened, and a mechanized arm lifted a tray of food into my cell. It set it on the floor next to me, then retreated into the hole.
I picked up the tray and put one of the Livo grapes into my mouth. It tasted as sweet and tangy as ever, but it was difficult to derive any pleasure from it. It was just sustenance to keep me going a little longer.
As I ate my meal, another sentinel entered the cell block, wheeling in front of it another glass case. I wouldn’t normally pay any attention to a new prisoner being brought in, but the noise it emitted got my attention.
Pounding thumps echoed through the prison and enraged bellows made every prisoner sit up and crane their necks. Everyone stared through their transparent walls as the container came into sight.
I squinted and blinked, trying to be sure of what I was seeing. Within the transport container was a female—which had already been hinted at by her voice, but now it was beyond deniable. Her curvy hips and full breasts were a fresh sight in this prison normally reserved for gruff masculine fighters. But knowing that, why was she here?
She wasn’t that big, but damn, she sure made a racket. She couldn’t have been more than two-thirds my size, but every muscle strained as she punched and kicked at the glass.
Maybe she was a fighter, after all. I should have known better than to judge her by her size and form…
I set the food aside, now fully engaged in this creature. Her smooth skin and bronze hair were nowhere near the norm. Despite all her spunk, she had a delicateness to her that wasn’t common to other alien species.
Ah! She was a human. Now I recognized her kind. But that only deepened my confusion. Humans weren’t physical fighters, not compared to most other intergalactic societies. And even though this particular one looked like she could throw fists all day, her species should have made her of little interest to our dear experimenters.
As she passed me, the noise and commotion shook up the other prisoners. Many leaped to their feet and started pounding on their glass. They shrieked and yelled and squeaked and jumped up and down, their mouths watering. Was a new screaming prisoner really that inspiring to them?
That was when it dawned on me, and I couldn’t believe it hadn’t until now: she was a female. Females never appeared here.
No wonder the rest of the prison was getting rowdy.
The impassive sentinel paid no attention as it approached the cell next to mine. The robot, as senseless as ever, pushed the transport container against the cell. The section of glass made an entrance into the cell, but the new prisoner didn’t crawl through. She stayed where she was, struggling against her container.
When she didn’t comply, the sentinel touched one of its mechanical appendages to the bottom of the transport container and delivered a powerful electric shock through the glass.
She jolted and let out a piercing screech that drove the other prisoners wild. The woman attacked the case even harder, but she couldn’t break the glass. The only way out was into the cell, and she flatly refused to go anywhere near it.
After two more shocks, the sentinel gave her one more, and this one was strong enough to knock her out completely. Her body grew stiff from the electrocution, then dropped against the glass. Her bronze hair flopped over her face and she didn’t move again.
The sentinel tipped up the case and her body slid through the opening. The cell glass then closed fully, and the robot carried off the transport container. And now she was trapped here for the rest of her foreseeable life. Same story, different day.
Though there seemed to be more to her. Much more. And there was undoubtedly something new stirring up inside me too. But I only allowed myself to feel that hope for a few seconds.
Then I returned to my meal.
