His Mate to Keep by Ivy Sparks

7

Merrit

I wokeup to the same view of the lab. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed. The lights always stayed at the same brightness, giving no sense of day or night. At least back on the Starglider, and every other modern ship I had been on, the lighting would try to emulate some kind of day cycle.

Having no sense of time was probably the worst torture.

Worse than the hottest alien man I’d ever met seeing me buck naked.

I almost turned around to see if Xavier was awake, but I stopped myself when the memory of yesterday’s shower came back to me. Instead, I kept my back to him as my cheeks heated.

After I stripped, Xavier saw nothing wrong with staring at me. And more shockingly, he saw nothing wrong with letting me see he was completely turned on.

Like, really turned on. The size of that thing… Part of me wanted to remember its finer details, but another part of me wanted to forget it.

How would it even fit?

Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like we’d ever touch anyway—not with this glass between us.

But were we really doomed to that fate? Stuck here, for the rest of our natural lives? I know I wasn’t about to accept it. Had he?

I had called him hopeless, but that wasn’t strictly true. He had wanted to survive above everything else, and had some remaining vigor for life, judging by his cock.

He also said he tried to escape and failed. He said he was like me when he first came here. That kind of fighting spirit didn’t just evaporate. If it had, he would have died a long time ago. It was still alive. He just learned to hide it the way he told me to hide mine.

Xavier was right. Lying low and keeping my head down was the best option—for now, at least. It was the only way to stay alive until an opportunity to escape presented itself. Fighting the experimenters would only waste precious energy.

I would rather fight, but when I thought about Xavier, I made up my mind. If he could do it, I could too. Burying that fighting spirit would be hard, but he managed it. He had to go through brutal experiments to learn that lesson. If I could somehow skip all of that and spare myself the torture, why wouldn’t I?

That story he told me about his home planet was pretty harsh too. He suffered a lot losing everything… just like I did. He was adrift, just like me. We were two of a kind. Maybe after we got out of here, we could drift together instead of apart.

I smiled at the fantasy, though deep down, I didn’t really think it’d ever come true.

What was wrong with me, anyway? Daydreaming about a guy? Seeing him naked in the shower must have shorted out my brain. He sure had an amazing body, not to mention that look in his eyes when he was watching me, but I was reading way too far into it.

No way a man like him would be attracted to a dope like me. Not to mention his apparent distaste for pirates.

A clacking noise made me look over my shoulder. After only a couple of days in this lab, I recognized the sound of the robots coming back. They moved down the aisle—two of them side by side this time.

Xavier was getting to his feet, and when I glanced at him, his expression told me in an instant that something was going on. This wasn’t part of the usual schedule.

I leaped up when the two sentinels stopped right in front of our cells, one in front of mine, and the other in front of Xavier’s. He glared at them both, his hands tightening into fists as he seemed to forget his mantra of cooperating.

Whatever was going on, we had the experimenters’ attention, and that definitely wasn’t a good thing. Had we been talking too much? Had all my plans of escape raised a red flag, and now they were here to put me in my place?

Stay calm, Merrit, I told myself. Don’t resist. Don’t fight.

I couldn’t stop myself from tensing, though. They were about to do something, and I didn’t want to find out what.

Xavier was getting more agitated by the second, which didn’t calm my nerves at all. “What are you doing? What’s the matter?” He always knew what was going on. If he was this anxious, something terrible must be about to happen.

“Subject Human Female acquired stardate 17490 and Subject Kavian Male acquired stardate 15837 have been selected for an experimental testing program,” the metallic voice replied.

“What experiment?” Xavier asked.

Instead of answering, the sentinels each entered our cells, the glass warping around them to let them through. That was when the floors of our cells dropped, sending us to an entirely different level.

For a split second, pitch blackness surrounded me and gravity sent me plummeting. Once I finally landed with a thump, lights turned on and I found myself and Xavier both in a featureless white room. The sentinels landed with ease and stepped aside as yet another glass container enveloped us.

For the first time, he and I were no longer separated by glass. We were together in the same container. Part of me was relieved to truly be beside him, but I feared what they were planning next.

Xavier took a step back away from me, as if he himself was dangerous to me.

And maybe he was.

“Subjects have been selected for an experimental testing program,” the metallic voice repeated.

“I heard you the first time,” Xavier snapped. “What is the experiment?”

“Subjects have been found biologically compatible. Subjects have been selected to produce viable offspring for the next phase of testing.”

My gaze snapped at Xavier. Viable offspring—with him? That meant… “No!” I roared. “You can’t make me!”

I ran to the nearest wall and started groping for any way out. I couldn’t go through with this. It was too much. This was worse than the atomizer. When I tried to run, my feet sank into the floor. It was soft and spongy, like running on a mattress.

Xavier growled at the sentinels. “You can’t force us to do this. Fighting is one thing, but this? We’re sentient beings. We have mating traditions that must be met before we—”

“Both subjects have been found biologically compatible. Both subjects will produce viable offspring for the next phase of testing.”

I looked over my shoulder with stark terror rising in my chest. I couldn’t go through with this. I would rather die than give these experimenters another generation of subjects to test.

Xavier glanced over at me at the same moment, and for the first time since I met him, a look of real dread entered his eyes. He didn’t want to do this to me, but he and I both knew that the experimenters always got what they wanted.

Regardless, I started shredding the padding of the floor with my fingernails, trying to claw my way to whatever was underneath. There had to be a way out of here. I couldn’t reach the hatch in the ceiling through which I fell, so that left the walls and the floor.

I punctured the slippery fabric covering the padding. My thumb punched into rubbery stuffing. Faster than I could believe, retractable arms appeared from the ceiling and snatched my wrists and ankles. They wrestled me into the middle of the room.

“No!” I bellowed. I struggled so hard that I jerked my feet off the floor, but the arms supported me and prevented me from falling. They twisted me around against my best efforts to break free. They tipped me onto my back and pinned me onto the spongy padding.

I kicked and thrashed with all my might. I lambasted the experimenters with insults, but nothing would break the iron grip of the robotic limbs holding me. They nailed my arms and legs down so I couldn’t move. They pulled my legs apart, and more mechanical appendages started to pull my clothes off.

I felt myself spinning into madness when Xavier leaned over me. His face appeared directly above my eyes. “Merrit! Listen to me. Stop struggling! If you don’t stop struggling, they’ll kill you. Do you hear me? Stop now. Lie still.”

His words drilled into my brain. They cut through the fog of terror and fury. I didn’t want to do this, but if I didn’t, I would die right here. Did I really want that? Was I really ready to sacrifice my life?

He kept talking in a steady stream of commands. “If you lie still, I can get them to release you.”

I willed myself to keep still, but nothing I could do would quiet my racing heart. He was right before about staying alive and choosing the right time to fight. No matter what they put us through, I had to keep sight of that. I’d be stupid to think it was going to be easy.

I fought myself into stillness, but the manacles didn’t release. Xavier tapped the one on my wrist. “Let her go. Restraining her will only make her more resistant.”

Nothing happened for a second. Then all four manacles unlocked at the same moment. I flipped over and took refuge in the only place available—Xavier.

His arms closed around me and I buried my face in his chest. I never would have thought I could need someone this much, but I never wanted him to let me go. I didn’t want to see this horrible room or the lab or anything else as long as I lived.

His hand came to rest on my hair, and he pressed me into himself. God, he felt good—the first good thing I’d felt since the Starglider. He was right there. He might not be able to fix this wretched situation, but at least he wouldn’t let me suffer alone.

A husky voice whispered in my ear. I took a moment to realize it was him talking to me. “There’s no way out of here except as a corpse. If we do this, I’ll do everything I can to get you through it with as little pain and humiliation as possible. But unless we both want to die here, we have to do it. I’m sorry. I never wanted this.”

A spasm of excruciating emotion flooded me. This situation was as horrible for him as it was for me. If I had to be stuck in this nightmare with someone, I could be grateful it was him.

A memory flashed in my mind, and I saw him naked in his cell with his hard cock reacting to my naked body. I saw his eyes tracing down my breasts to my waist and over the curve of my ass. He wanted me then. He didn’t have to be forced into this, so long as I wanted it too.

I pushed out of his arms and looked up at him. I filled my whole being with him and blocked out everything else.

“I’m ready.”