Her hair was a beautiful strawberry-brown. The perfect mix of earthy soil and the red of the galaxy I had originated from. It was, I would admit, hard to look away. “Soon, we will arrive in the Nyelan System,” she added with a detectable amount of pride and ambition.
I looked away from her breathtaking beauty because it was clouding my thought process. She wasn’t thinking straight. She was wrong. Fuck. She didn’t know a damn thing.
It wasn’t my job to be nice. I came here because my planet combusted. The entirety of my sun was harnessed to burn us up. “You are mistaken. The engines have been turned off. This ship has been floating in space for hours now. You have lost considerable time.”
“If you are right, it is not something I approved. Juliana must have...” She choked on her words. “No, it’s impossible. Juliana would have never authorized it.”
“Who?” Before she could respond, I felt my anger get the best of me. I rattled her cage with my fist, ignoring the pain completely. “Tell me.”
“Cade did it.”
Tears formed in her eyes, and I waited for her to have her moment. When her confused tantrum passed, I leaned nearer to the metal bars and glared at her. She needed to understand how fucked she was without me.
As if carrying the ability to read my mind, she calmly told me, “I am not the captain of the ship. It is not my duty to make sure you survive. I have a crew, a responsibility.”
It was no one’s duty to make sure anyone survived. Even with my mapping systems in place, I wasn’t sure we’d make it to anywhere safe.
“You are correct. Your survival means nothing in the grand scheme of this universe,” I said. “But if you want, I can make your life important throughout time.”
I leaned back and observed the curiously frightened animal in her cage. Beautiful, frightened little fawn. There was nothing to be scared of. She would soon get used to all of this.
“Yes.” She fell silent. “I guess neither of our lives means too much in the grand scheme of things.”
There were ground rules that needed to be put in place. Our lives didn’t matter much to the stars around us, but my race of alphas mattered enough to me. I was still feeling the sting of injury, and I longed for a new home and mate.
“But they can,” I said. “Every life can matter if they find a way to live forever.”
“Forever?” she asked. “Look at my life. Why would I want to live forever?”
The universe was far more connected than she understood. She had been chosen. “Your child is your legacy,” I said. “It is not up to you to decide.”
She sank back, defeated.
“Your planet is full of self-obsessed sociopaths battling for resources they could all share. They have no external enemies, yet they kill themselves. Your life had no meaning because your people refused to make one.”
And before she could say anything else, I added, “We survive. We protect our women. Family does not break down where I am from. It binds us together.”
“You aren’t as callous as you make yourself out to be,” she said, abrupt
ly moving closer to the bars. “You kept me alive.”
“I have no intention of killing your people,” I lied.
“Then, what is it that you really want?”
“Your face. Your body. Those wide hips. I want to use them all,” I said. “I need kin, and you are the perfect fit.”
“I’m… barren.” She kept her voice low.
Her cheeks flushed enough to let me know that she wanted it about as badly as I did.
“You, my slippery wet cunt, are wrong. You are as fertile as an oasis.”
“You are as crude as you are merciful,” she said. “But I’ve been through the tests. It’s not possible for me.”
“Then, we will make a deal,” I said.
“This place. This unrefined ship. It is run by unrefined people. Derelicts. It reeks of betrayal. You will die here without my help. Not only do I offer you a way out, but I will give you the family you crave.”