Wrecked: A Dark Sci-Fi Romance Read online

Page 3


  “What is this one’s name?”

  “She has no name. She must be from the farm.”

  “A true calamity,” the elder says. “The Vargons must be stopped.”

  There we all agree, but this planet, our technologies, they are not advanced enough to do anything but slay the Vargons who land upon our surfaces. We inhabit the world, we do not sail the stars. So we must watch as untold travesties unfold around us, opportunistic species pillaging innocent planets, building fragile empires that collapse every time a star dies.

  We are held closer to the heart of our world. We know the core of things. We experience time differently. We experience everything differently.

  She is small and she is young and she is exquisite and I want her. I want her more than any jewel in these cavernous halls. She is something precious to protect. I hold my breath, waiting to hear what they have to say about my fire-haired angel.

  “Am I free to take her into my burrow?” I do not want to sound too eager, but the human’s lust has excited me. I want to take her somewhere private and unleash that desire for our mutual pleasure.

  “Be careful,” the eldest elder intones. “This one carries death with her.”

  His words confuse me. I see no signs of sickness on her, and she carries no physical materials capable of causing death. She is entirely naked aside from the remnants of her bonds.

  “Disease?”

  “Not disease,” another says. “She is powerful.”

  I look down at her, knowing what I know about her kind, where she comes from, her confusion at her own lustful responses, and more. How could something this weak and, bluntly, pathetic be powerful? I feel the urge to protect her because she is delicate.

  They are getting too old. They are seeing what is not there, but the most important hurdle has been crossed. They have allowed her to stay in our underground city. The lair of the Fendinn has been opened to her.

  “Stay quiet,” I murmur in her speech. I do not want her to utter a single sound that might make the elders change their minds. We need the shelter of the rocks above. I need the heat from the molten core of the fires below. And humans—all humans I have met—have a talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

  She is sweating, liquid beading on her skin. She will need water. Lots of it. I have seen humans dehydrate in my realm, but I will not allow that, or any other harm to befall her.

  “What kind of power? Humans have none. Especially not the farmed kind.”

  “Destiny has a power of its own. It twists and takes the worlds around it, bends them to its will. She is in the grip of destiny. She was thrown from the stars to our sands with no major injuries. Be sure, fate has a plan for this one.”

  Fate and destiny can have all the plans they want to have. I have plans for her too.

  “Take her,” the elder says. “But know, though you may possess her, there are greater forces at play, and if it should come to pass that fate comes for her, let her go to it. We will not sacrifice this home for one broken human.”

  I know the elders are wise, but sometimes even I doubt them. I am looking at this desperately lost, permanently stranded little human female and I am at a loss to see how she could ever pose any kind of a danger to beings such as us. Even the weakest of our kind are stronger than this.

  “You will not have to sacrifice. I will do what is necessary to take care of her.”

  The elders make a sound I have not heard them make before. One of doubt. It strikes me as unfair. There are other humans in the burrow. Usually their meeting with the elders is nothing more than a formality.

  “It is too late,” one says to the others. “Fate cannot be denied. It has all been foretold.”

  I sense a melancholy in them, and again I am confused. What is it they are not saying? They seem to understand something I do not.

  “What is to come will not be easy, Isu. This human is just the beginning. Be strong. Be resolute. Do not be afraid to follow your instincts. It is important.”

  Now I am even more confused. This should have been a simple meeting. I should already be buried in the flesh of the female whose body reacts to mine so naturally and willingly. She is all I can think about. She is beginning to become restless in my arms. She squirms and looks at the elders, as if she might understand them better than I do, but I know that’s not possible.

  “Is there something you are trying to tell me, Elder?”

  “There is nothing you can be told,” he replies. “The future is yet to be decided, but there is motion in the earth and in the sky. These storms bring us scraps from the human world. But those scraps are intended to feed, not to be hoarded. Beware hunger. Yours, hers, and the hunger of others. Go, Isu. Do what must be done.”

  It’s not the blessing I expected, but I will take it.

  * * *

  Aspel

  There has been a lot of talking in the language I find intoxicating, but finally Isu says what I surmise are farewells to the older of his kind and carries me from their chamber.

  “You have been welcomed into the burrow,” he says. “Now I will take you to my home.”

  Home. The farm is home. Wherever this is, is not home. This is a subterranean maze from which I will never escape. Panic begins to rise inside me as I feel him carry me deeper still through tunnels that occasionally flare with a strange ambient light only to plunge us into darkness at the very next step.

  He knows the way, of course. What seems like a labyrinth to me is entirely familiar to him. He takes me through a door, heavy rock made to move beneath his massive palm, and then we are inside something inside something else. This is a place of layered darkness. I don’t think I have been rescued. I think I have been captured. If only I could muster concern without being overwhelmed by the heat coming from this creature who holds me and sets my blood aflame with lust.

  He puts me down and lights a flame with a snap of his fingers, putting them to a red rock that sputters into life and casts a glow to let me see by.

  I look around and see that this area is spacious. There is water running down the wall at the far end, pooling along the edges of the floor and streaming gently in a pond. I have never seen water like that before and I cannot stop staring. I am used to water being delivered through the drinking tubes that we lapped from when we became thirsty.

  Is this better or worse than the fate that would have awaited me if the shuttle hadn’t crashed? I don’t know, but I’m beginning to wonder. I haven’t been hurt, but that might only be because there hasn’t been any time to hurt me in yet. I could still be devoured. It would be possible for him, I think, to turn me into meat and consume me. This does not seem like the sort of place where the weak do well.

  I turn and look to him for... I don’t know if explanation is the word I am looking for, but direction.

  “You are beautiful,” he says. “And you are mine.”

  A declaration of ownership. I have been owned before. All my life I have been property of Vargon Inc. Now I belong to him. But who is him? Who, for that matter, am I?

  “Don’t look so confused,” he says with a rumbling chuckle. “I’m going to look after you and explain everything as it comes. I know they don’t teach you much on the farm besides obeying the orders of your herders.”

  I stay silent. He hasn’t asked me a question.

  He looks at me for a very long time, it feels, his dark eyes running over me.

  “I will give you a name,” he says. “A new name is a new beginning. I will call you... Aspel.”

  “Aspel? What does that mean?”

  “In our tongue, it means one who walks the stars.”

  That is a very pretty name. Too pretty for me. “I don’t need a name.”

  “You have one,” he says. “You will answer to it, and you will follow my orders. You will do as I say. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.” I have been trained to answer quickly and affirmatively. I don’t have to think about my answer, because no an
swers have ever been thought about.

  “Do you... agree?” He phrases the question differently and immediately throws me into confusion.

  “Do I agree?” I repeat the question, not knowing how to answer it. “Yes?”

  “That sounds like a question,” he says, his lips twisting into what might be a smile, if the fangs didn’t get in the way. “Don’t you know if you agree or not?”

  “I’ve never been asked to agree. I’ve just been told what to do.”

  “Ah, of course, the farm mentality. They kept you like a little animal, didn’t they. Well, Aspel, you are much more than that. You are human, and your submission means something—but only when you understand what it is you are giving.”

  I try to look as though I understand, even though I don’t. I know I am human, but being human doesn’t mean what he thinks it does.

  “Come here,” he says, drawing me over to a bed. It is lined with soft material and it feels pleasant to sink into. It is cooler than I expected it to be, a pleasant relief from the warmth of these depths.

  “My name is Isu,” he says. “That is what you will call me. You will also call me Master. Master Isu. Understand?”

  “Yes, Master Isu.”

  He looks at me and I sense that he is both pleased with my response and somehow still dissatisfied with it.

  “You are very obedient,” he says. “But I do not think it is true obedience.”

  “What is true obedience, Master Isu?”

  “It is when you do what you are told because you desire to please the one who is doing the telling.”

  I fall silent. Do I desire to please him? I do not. I have never desired to please anyone. I was raised to be compliant, but only to avoid pain. I have been conditioned to seek reward, follow directions, and acquiesce to authority. But that is not enough for Master Isu.

  He is demanding, this alien. He is different from me in every way, big and small. I don’t know how to behave around him. The farm handlers barked orders and used electric sticks if we did not obey, but I don’t think that is his style.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, giving me a fanged smile that seems to be designed to calm me. “I will show you. Look after you. You’re safe now.”

  I’ve never been safe before. I’m not sure that this is a place I can feel safe. It’s so dark. I’m not used to dark like this. And it smells... I don’t know if bad is the word, but definitely different. It smells like heat and chemicals and danger.

  “Ask questions,” he says. “You will have to ask many to learn.”

  There is one question at the forefront of my mind. I heard them all speaking their native tongue to one another, but he also knows how to communicate with me.

  “How do you know how to talk to me? Why do you know the standard tongue?”

  He sits down in a chair that is carved into the wall itself and beckons me over to his knee. I go slowly, am captured by his big hands and drawn down onto his knee where I sit perched and nervous.

  “You are not the first to come here. For a time, there were many humans caught in storms, dashed against our planet. Most of them perished, but some survived.”

  “There are other people here?”

  “There are.”

  “I want to meet them.”

  “They are owned.”

  * * *

  Isu

  Her eyes widen. “What do you mean, they are owned?”

  She thought she had found freedom, but freedom does not exist in a universe where the strong dominate the weak. She will be mine. I will claim her. I will give her everything she was begging for on the surface, but I will not free her to the world at large.

  “They are the property of the Fendinn who own them,” I explain. “We are the Fendinn. We live on this planet, beneath the surface. As you can see.”

  It is strange to try to explain my world to one as innocent as this. I told her to ask questions, but she hardly knows what questions to ask.

  She can barely make eye contact with me, and when she does, her gaze darts away almost immediately. She is afraid. I am sure she has spent her life in a state of one kind of fear or another, but this is different. We Fendinn are different from the Vargons who farm her species. We have no interest in humans as food.

  “You own people?”

  “Humans need to be owned,” I explain. “Left to your own devices, you people cause chaos. We’ve seen it time and time again. So don’t worry, little one. I will be a good owner. You will flourish in my care.”

  Her lower lip trembles. “I don’t want to be owned. I want to be free.”

  “What do you know of freedom, human? For you, freedom was going to be starving on the surface until you were consumed by a greater beast. Here with me you are safe, you will be fed instead of being food.”

  She’s hardly listening. That’s another human trait. Their attention is often scattered. They choose one thing, then another. Their minds flit and fly without sense. Concentration is limited.

  “They were taking me to be sold,” she says softly. “But it didn’t matter, did it? I was going to be taken anyway.”

  Yes. Her fate was sealed from birth. She was made to be taken, designed to be claimed. Everything about her is soft and vulnerable. I am anticipating defiling her in so many ways, it is difficult to know where to start.

  * * *

  Aspel

  He brushes the hot pad of his thumb under my eye, gathering the tear that dissipates almost immediately against his skin. I feel another one of those traitorous flashes of heat charging through my body. This alien beast is a walking aphrodisiac.

  “Aspel...”

  For a very long moment, I don’t recognize the sound as having any significance. Then I realize he is looking at me, and recall that he said I had a name now. Aspel. That is the name.

  I don’t know if I want a name. I have never had a name before. Never needed one. The chip under my skin could be scanned and I was identified by number. What do I care about a name when I find myself captive in darkness? Will I see the sun again? Even the farm had sun rather than this eternal night.

  “You must try to remember your name, Aspel.”

  “I will try,” I say, immediately acquiescing just as he wants me to.

  “Good girl. But you must also call me Master, remember?”

  “Yes, Master Aspel.”

  “No,” he says. “Aspel is your name. Isu is mine.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  There is tension in his voice, a low growl that rumbles through my flesh. “Do you truly not understand? Is it so hard to recall? Or is this reluctance on your part because you don’t like the name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes to which?”

  I know how to be obedient. I also know how to comply in a way that is completely useless. I am hesitant to obey him because I am hesitant to be his. To be anyone’s. I was rescued from the farm by the Vargons who stole me from the parts machine. I should be dead now, but I’m alive, and my instincts tell me it should be on my own terms.

  Isu should never have asked me if I agreed. That simple question has set off a cascade of answers and other questions in my mind. I don’t want to be trapped in darkness. I want to see the light.

  “When do we go back to the surface?”

  “We don’t,” he says simply. “You don’t, certainly. It isn’t safe.”

  “Why not?”

  “Predators,” he says, one word, as if that word should be enough.

  It isn’t.

  A simple question has gone an incredible way to undoing almost two decades of conditioning. He asked me earlier, do I agree to be his? No. I do not agree. I have never agreed to anything. It never mattered before. I wonder if it will matter now.

  “Do not pout, human.”

  “I,” I say slowly, trying the words out for the first time and savoring them every moment. “Do not... agree.”

  “Oh, you do not agree?” He smiles, fangs becoming longer as his lips draw back from
his mouth.

  “I do not.”

  “Then I shall have to make you agree.”

  I draw back, expecting him to hurt me. That is how every order has been enforced in my life: with pain.

  Instead, he lets his hand drift over my hip and then around to my rear and I feel the heat of his being sink through me from behind.

  “I have to be careful not to burn you,” he murmurs, more to himself than to me. “You’re such a delicate little thing.”

  I feel delicate in comparison to him. I feel small and soft, and when his fingers dip down between my cheeks, spreading them to find the little hole he already claimed and the one made for a man, I quiver, forgetting entirely about the world above the ground. In darkness, he gleams and glows, and my pleasure begins to rise, that devilish heat starting to make my sex swell as he toys with me lightly between my thighs.

  He is being careful with me, I can tell. His dark eyes keep focusing on my face with what I think might be concern as the tips of his fingers begin to spread the petals of my sex, part me, find the wet core of me where my own heat resides.

  A moan escapes my lips as he stirs gently there, his finger hot and hard and thick, promising to penetrate but staying just outside my body until my hips grind with that hopeless instinct they have been blessed with.

  “You’re going to do as I say,” he growls softly. “Because you are my Aspel, my little human. You are mine, and I take very good care of what is mine.”

  “You have... a hole in the ground,” I whimper, the words rising to my lips before I can consider if they are wise or not.

  “I have much more than a hole in the ground. I have your holes too, sassy little human,” he drawls, casually pressing another of his fingers to my bottom at the same time as he toys with my sex. It is a threat, but one I do not cower away from. I am empty. I need to be filled.

  “What do you want, Aspel?”

  That name makes me bristle, but it also makes me warm. The word is his claim. The name makes me his. If I respond to it, then I am acknowledging that I have become Aspel. I am not the meat bound for parts. I am the human who must obey her alien master.

 
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