Excerpt from Avenged, a dark alien romance. Book Three in the Mate for an Alien Master series.
Releasing on the 22nd June.
Copyright © L.V. Lane
Adult content intended for mature audiences only.
Chapter 1
Erin
I never aspired to become a space pirate. It was more an occupation I stumbled upon while trying to survive. I grew up in a sprawling shantytown on the outskirts of Primus. Just one of many orphans running the filthy streets, stealing, even begging when I could spot the right candidate, and going hungry the rest of the time, until Mike—the rough spaceship captain—became a pocket-picked too far. He gave my ass a sound thrashing and took me back to his ship to work off my debt.
No one interfered. I was a leech. The people of my shantytown were glad to see me go.
I was still a kid at the time, Mike, about a hundred, with more rolls of purple skin than I was comfortable getting up close and personal with. Thankfully, it turned out that Mike was a soft-hearted sort of brute, and the worst he did was set me to scrubbing every corner of his filthy ship. His crew—all hulking aliens of one breed or another—treated me like an overindulged whelp under their feet, chuckling at my antics, which were many and inventive, and putting me to scrubbing duties on those occasions when my mischief went too far.
No one would write a sonnet about my life, but after my fateful meeting with Mike, I never went to bed hungry again.
And that was how I became a space pirate.
Until two weeks ago, when my idyllic journey into space piracy came off the rails.
Today as I finish a hard day grafting in the ship engine room, hot and sweaty, I think about crawling straight into my bed. My tiny quarters are next to the engine room, along a narrow corridor, and down a hatch out of everyone’s way. The room used to be for storage, but Mike’s crew repurposed it for me. A legacy of my early life on the streets is that I don’t do open spaces… or beings. Beings and people equal danger, and spaces equal exposure and lack of safety; they are pretty much one and the same. Mike ordered his team to rip out the supplies that had been stowed there and long forgotten, installed a bed, portable cleansing unit, a cupboard, and I was good to go.
There is barely enough room for me, which is just the way I like it. With a twenty aliens strong crew and the Krinch—an essential inclusion if you don’t want a riot to break out—space is a premium.
Now my room is my hideaway. The giant horned bastards who destroyed my rosy foray into space piracy can’t get through the narrow hatch. It means sleep is done safely although they expect their pound of flesh paid via my servitude if I want to see food in my belly. Space rations have always held a peculiar allure for me—but that’s what happens when you grow up in a slum, going hungry half the time.
I think about going hungry now.
I think about staying down here, curling up in my bed, and letting the creeping death of hunger come for me.
Only I’m a human, and survival is hard wired into us. So instead of going to bed, I head for the canteen where I can grab some food before I sleep and repeat the cycle of another day grafting for the horned bastards who destroyed my dream.
You see, just as Mike turned out to be a pocket-picked too far for me, so the Burning Titan proved to be a booty-pirated too far for Mike.
* * *
As I enter the ship canteen today, our resident Krinch is getting fucked by a horned bastard on the end booth table.
Two weeks ago, I had been sitting in the same booth playing cards with Mike and his boys and feeling happy with my lot. Mike is dead now. The horned bastards splattered his purple blood all over the metal floor and walls of the canteen within minutes of the breach.
Which is when I discovered that Mike wasn’t a pirate at all, more of an opportunistic scavenger.
These are real pirates. Not the rough-around-the-edges, soft-in-the-center kind of pirate wannabes, but a mean-to-the-core, slit-your-throat-if-you’re-not-useful kind of pirates. Some of Mike’s crew put up a fight, not that it did them any good. All too quickly, the remainder of us were assimilated into their operation.
Our ship is no longer our ship, but their ship, tacked on to the side of a much larger vessel while they strip anything of worth. To add further insult, me and the surviving crew are helping them in this task.
Gone is the playful banter, at least on our part. The pirates, the real ones, spend a great deal of time happy.
As I survey the crowded canteen, I regret not going straight to bed despite the hunger gnawing at my belly.
Head low, hood pulled forward, breather mask in place over my face, and eyes hidden behind welding goggles two sizes too big, I take advantage of the distraction to sneak through to the back where the packaged food is kept. Half a dozen of the pirate’s brethren watch the Krinch, grunting their appreciation when she emits a particularly enthusiastic scream.
It might be from pleasure, or it might be from pain. I’m not much of an expert on the nuances of fucking. Being a wannabe space pirate’s whelp is not conducive to sexual exploration.
Maybe I should feel sorrier for the Krinch. Still, she’s been servicing Mike and his crew for years, and anyone who could fuck a creature with slimy purple skin isn’t going to be worried about a few rough pirates.
Also, Krinch are genetically engineered for sexual servitude. She has two mouths and three pussies and can only ingest semen. Basically, she’s dead if she isn’t fucked enough.
I’ve spent too much of my life hungry to feel sorry for a female who’s being fed.
Today, I’m hungry enough to chew on cables. Long hours ripping components from the cramped ship underbelly…because I’m the only person who can fit, is coupled with snatching no more than a few hours’ sleep a night…because I’m terrified, are talking their toll.
If I don’t eat some food and rest soon, I’m going to make a mistake.
No one pays attention as I shove a package into the food-bator. If it were editable raw, I’d have already taken it and fled. I mutter a curse when the touchpad doesn’t respond to my gloved finger. The only reason I’ve flown under the radar so far is because every inch of me is covered. A few of Mike’s former crew let it be known that I’m an obscure, highly poisonous life form useful for getting into the awkward spaces on the ship.
The horned stripy bastard, who appears to command the pirate horde, gave me a dubious look on hearing this news and set me to immediate work.
A swift glance over my shoulder, and I ascertain that everyone is still occupied. Most of them have given me a wide berth since the ‘poisonous’ declaration, but it pays to be cautious. Humans are unique in the galaxy, and I’m confident anyone catching a glimpse of my flesh will herald the beginning of my demise.
Mike’s crew were sneaking me rations, but I’ve not seen any of them in days. Hence, I’m so hungry. Hence, I’m taking this risk.
Deep breath. I whip the glove off, stab the buttons for cook, and shove the glove back on.
My heart is racing a galactic mile a minute, but all I hear is the raucous encouragement, “Plug another hole!”
I’m fine. I force my breathing to slow. Just a few minutes, and I can take my prize and get out of here, back to my hideaway where the horned fuckers can’t reach me, and I can eat and catch a few hours of much-needed sleep.
I’m exhausted, dirty, and my stomach feels like someone has cut a hole in it. My life has come full circle. Once a Prius whelp, always a Prius whelp, scavenging for my next meal before finding a place to hide.
The timer ticks down from two minutes, the bare minimum needed so I won’t make myself ill. The crowd around the Krinch turns rowdier, and my tension lifts in tandem.
Thirty seconds.
The Krinch emits a high keening wail, and my nerves stretch tight.
Twenty seconds. I can manage another twenty seconds.
A cheer goes up behind me, but I keep my eyes on the prize. Think small, be small. They believe I’m poisonous thanks to quick thinking from Mike’s former crew—I fucking love the ugly, purple-skinned wannabe pirates who took me in for the last five years.
Ten seconds.
I sense a presence behind me.
A single hand closes over mine where it rests on the counter. The horned bastards come in a variety of colors…red, black, gray, white, solid color, or with darker tips.
The clawed hand that covers mine was pure black, but from the wrist, it’s snow white where it disappears under his plated armor. I’ve never looked too closely at any of the horned ones until now, but frozen by my fear, my mind sucks in every horror-drenched detail. Retractable claws spring to clatter against the counter. The skin isn’t skin at all, but super short fur.
The hand is so big that it swallows my gloved one with ease.
“You made a mistake, human,” his deep voice rumbles the declaration of doom next to my ear.
Chapter 2
Kane
A Krinch is getting fucked in all her many holes when I enter the canteen of our latest acquisition.
This is quite an undertaking, and I’m distracted for several seconds as I try to work out what is what among the writhing mass of limbs, bodies, and cocks.
Krinch are better suited to the three-cocked Tridons, but the team are taking on the challenge.
I wince as a particularly enthusiastic thrust batters the Krinch’s head into the wall.
She does not appear troubled. Then again, the species has an incredible tolerance for pain.
I do a double-take seeing the tiny poisonous one getting rations. This is the first time I’ve seen it since we boarded this vessel.
Edicus wanted to blast its body into space when he learned of its poisonous nature. Still, I reason it has lived among the purple-folded ones for many years without apparent incident. It is tiny, and so helpful in much of the necessary ship-stripping. Also, if it dies, we will not be troubled in the way we would for other, more robust captives.
The Krinch chooses this moment to climax. I wince again as the high-pitched sound assaults my ears.
Then do my second double-take as the poisonous one pops its ration into the food-bator. It pauses in a way I find odd before swiftly removing its glove and tapping on the control screen.
I blink. Initially, I’m concerned about crew safety should toxins linger where it touched. Then I’m concerned for an entirely different reason.
Only one creature in the known universe has such delicate skin in shades of white or brown, human. Something akin to panic whites out my mind. It is delicate, female, I’m sure of this. If it-she is discovered, there will be a riot. Human females are the source of the sweetest sexual pleasure. There will be a riot, and its tiny, frail body will be rutted to death! Should sanity prevail, Edicus will claim her, and then he will fuck her to death!
I’ve whiled away many drunken nights listening to Lan's stories of mating women. I initially presumed this to be an exaggeration since the human-half breed is prone to wild tales when inebriated. He’s entertaining, and his stories often draw a crowd. Still, he spoke of fucking a human female in detail until realizing my enrapt interest when he downplayed their allure.
Which leads me to the conclusion that he was, in fact, telling the truth.
I need to get it-her to safety.
As I assess the tiny, probably non-poisonous one, I realize my thoughts are not entirely virtuous in nature. I’m a pirate, so I’m relieved by this. The strange, protective malady I first suffered was a sure road to my personal ruin. What I want is to take the tiny one to my quarters, strip it to check if it is verifiably a she, and further, has the little petals Lan spoke so highly of, which provide a source of untold pleasure.
The need to unwrap it and inspect the tiny petals becomes an imperative. I will beat Lan bloody if his tales were an exaggeration. Well, I will try, the half-breed has skin tougher than a mystical Earth elephant, and in our many sparring sessions, my claws barely make a dent.
I move to crowd it (yet to be verified as a she) against the counter. It gasps, and even to my untrained ears, I’m convinced it is female. I fear that I will imminently be rutting her with all the savagery I possess. Scent washes over me, ripe and unclean, but my cocks stir regardless, straining against the hard plates of my armor until the pain brings a genuine fear I might black out.
My hand closes over her smaller, glove covered one.
“You made a mistake, human,” I say, my voice rougher than usual.
She freezes. The food-bator dings to announce the program is complete. She sighs, then surprises me by snatching the container from within. “Fine, whatever, but you’re going to let me eat first.”
* * *
I allow her to take the food she’s so possessive about back to my allocated quarters. No one pays any attention. They are likely presuming I’m about to eject her out into space as Edicus desired. The corridor is quiet, but I still check each way carefully before taking her inside my quarters.
Spinning, she presses a gloved hand to my chest as the door clicks shut. “I eat first.”
The mask muffles her voice, but it has a pleasing tone. I nod, trying not to appear too eager for her to remove the mask, yet incredibly eager regardless.
A short impasse follows. I make no move to inspect her, much as I strongly desire to do so, and she makes no move to eat.
“You eat first,” I confirm, hoping to progress the situation and indicate my flip-down seat and table.
With a nod, she sits. The hood remains up, but she slips the mask and welding goggles off as she turns toward the food.
The hood hides most of her face, but I catch a glimpse of a small pink nose as she rips the top from the food package and begins to shovel the contents into her mouth.
I always imagined that human females would be graceful. She is not graceful—I’ve seen hardened space pirates with more grace than this tiny being.
Is the poor creature starving? I could eat once a week and be satisfied, but I remember that Lan needs to eat several times a day. She is mine now, dirty, disheveled, and even if she does not have the elusive petals, I will ensure she is fed.
I try not to crowd her as she eats, but nevertheless am almost touching her by the time she’s done.
Pushing the empty carton aside, she sends a furtive glance my way and then stills. “What are you going to do with me?” she asks.
With the mask gone, her voice is unmistakably feminine.
“Are you human?” I ask, needing her to admit as much. I can’t see her eyes, but I have an enticing view of her pretty pink lips.
“No,” she says. “I’m a really obscure type of being that looks a lot like a human but is super poisonous.”
Her voice is unsteady, reminding me that she is small and prey, while I am a large predator.
Also, I’m now convinced beyond doubt that she is human.
When I don’t answer, her head lowers before she asks once more, “What will you do with me?”
“Keep you,” I say, knowing I’ll be in serious trouble should anyone find me hiding a human, yet determined to do precisely that. “Inspect you,” I add, although I’m thinking more about the fucking that will follow on from the inspection. “And discipline you severely if you lie to me again,” I finish.
In Lan’s many rambling tales of human females, he emphasized their cunning nature and wiles that can cause males of any species to forget all common sense unless the female is trained and disciplined.
She nods. Her pink lips tremble, but it’s for the best that she understands her situation.
“You are dependent upon me now.” Why does voicing this fill me with a sense of power over her? I’m a pirate. She is a captive. I’ve always held power yet keeping her here with me heightens this dynamic. “I will train you to please me. If you please me, I will care for you. If you don’t, I will be forced to discipline you. You would do well to remember this.”
She nods again. “Okay…can I clean up first?”
I cannot yet see her eyes, but her plump lips are utterly captivating. She is ripe, though, and while I’m not displeased with her suggestion that she clean, I’m a little surprised. “You may.” I tap the door plate on the cleansing cubical, and it pops open with a hiss. “Do not attempt to close the door.”
“Everything will get wet?”
“Do not close the fucking door and do not question me again.”
Her sigh is heavy with attitude—I will question Lan further on the handling of human females since, although she is shaking as she gains her feet, she is not close to being mastered.
Turning her back on me, she pulls the zip down her jacket. I forget to breathe. Next, the hood is drawn back, revealing a shock of shaggy hair in shades of brown, red and blonde that must have been cropped with a blade. The jacket slides off leaving only a threadbare undershirt. I take in her slim back, shoulders, and delicate neck.
My claws spring and my stomach muscles clench, so delicate.
She throws a look over her shoulder—I might have growled—and then I see her eyes before she snatches them away.
Big, bright, electric blue.
Lan’s are a glassy mud-brown; I was not expecting them to come in different shades.
My stomach clenches again, and I grimace as the predictable rising of certain parts of my body pinches against my armor plates.
The jacket is folded and placed neatly beside the cleanser door. Her boots come next. There is a pause before the undershirt is drawn over her head to reveal pale skin crisscrossed in a network of white scars.
The sight enrages me. I want to storm from the room and cut down every one of the purple-folded bastards on the ship. But ration arrives—these are old scars, certainly from many weeks, months or even years ago.
“Who did this?” I ask. My voice is rough, and I must battle to keep my claws retracted as I draw my fingertip across her skin. She is so fragile. My claws could rip through her skin, and a new scar will join the rest.
“Lots of people,” she says quietly. “They’re from when I was a child.”
A scar on her shoulder has left a ridge, and she shivers as I trace over the curve, delicate, breakable, and mine.
I step back abruptly.
Hands shaking, she undoes the buckle on her trousers, and they slide over her hips…and a round ass that stirs another growl. Another glance back, another flash of those bright eyes, and she darts into the cleanser. My booted foot hits the doorstep plate before she can snap it shut, and with a defiant glare, she hits the power button.
Water bursts from a hundred micro-jets. My body blocks much of the deluge, but it still sluices down my body armor and pools out into my room.
With her back to me, she washes.
I am getting soaked; my room is getting soaked. There is a genuine danger that this will trigger an alarm, but I don’t care about any of those problems as I watch her hands glide over her water-slicked hair and body.
It cannot be more than two minutes before an alarm blares. I’m grateful that she is prompt enough to have soaped and rinsed her short hair. Her body isn’t thoroughly washed, but it is washed enough, and I thump the power button and wrest her dripping body from the cubical.
I hit the override on the alarm panel, lest some interfering fucker decides to check. She is shivering, my claws have sprung, and a thin trickle of blood oozes where they have punctured her delicate skin. I retract them.
I don’t lose command of myself like this.
She’s holding herself away, face averted. I want to demand she turns around. She’s a captive and has no privilege beyond those I choose to give her. The need to inspect that which is now mine is compelling, and I toss her slippery form down upon the bed...
PRE ORDER ・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵
Calm and deadly, Kane, the Devlin warrior, is determined to claim me.
Sweet and sinfully monstrous, Lan, the human-gargoyle hybrid, is determined to save me.
The aliens who stalk my dreams at night have set their sights on me.
Only they are no figment of my imagination. I met the former space pirates long ago.
Then I escaped.
…with a monstrous secret.
And when a certain alien finds out what it is, he’s going to avenge himself on me.
Avenged is a dark science fiction romance short story.
TW: non-con, violence, airplay, experimentation, captive-captor relationship, breeding, tail-play, special equipment.
Buy Link: https://tinyurl.com/AvengedAlien