Even when we walked into our bedroom area, with a massive, human-sized cage at the center, she didn’t flinch. I watched her closely, looking for signs of fear and saw nothing except a slight widening of her eyes when she first saw it.
“You’ll be caged when we sleep. You can’t be trusted to be out on your own when we sleep tonight,” Zaavyr ordered firmly and I saw her straighten her shoulders and pull them back at the sound of his voice. This little human was certainly going to be a challenge.
Jax met my eyes then.
“She’s going to take a certain strategy to break, Coltan,” he said through our telepathic link. I nodded in response.
Aedan stared her down then and Jax smiled. Jax was always the one we relied on to get through tough times. Without him, I wouldn’t know where we’d be now.
He’d been the one to come up with the idea of how to capture her in the first place.
“Coltan. Why don’t you play the good cop? Aedan, you get to be the bad cop. And I’ll remain somewhere in the middle. Keep her on her toes,” Jax said and Aedan grinned.
“I could definitely get behind that,” Aedan replied, unable to keep himself from chuckling softly. Kira jerked toward us, staring us down and searching our eyes. If I had to guess, she probably didn’t know about our telepathic abilities. It was one of our most closely guarded secrets, especially when dealing with our subordinates.
Human were our slaves after all. The men worked the fields and, in our factories as slaves, while the women we took as ours to bed, in order to breed.
Our species had one weakness. Our offspring were always exclusively male. Our genetics never combined in a manner to produce a female. In order to survive, we turned to conquering and were regarded with a sense of fear. We took what we needed in order to continue our race.
Earth had been one of our conquests, but it had proven to be a more difficult planet to rule over in the ensuing years. Periodically, there were small pockets of resistance, like the one Kira represented, almost like the human race had some sort of hope that they’d be free one day.
They were never going to be free. We owned them. Some of them, like Kira here, just needed to accept that.
I met her sapphire blue eyes and shook my head. I saw her hope there. I saw her fire, her need to be free, but I knew those things would only be temporary. They always broke eventually, and despite her strength, she would too.
I reached for her then, cupping the left side of her face with my palm. She flinched slightly at my touch, but I continued on, running my thumb across the cusp of her beautifully high cheekbones. So distinctive.
Time to play good cop then.
“There’s no need to be afraid, Kira,” I began, and her eyes narrowed slightly, the skin crinkling in the cutest pout of frustration that I’d ever seen. Her blue irises shone brightly, stormy with her anger and a slight sense of unexpected hesitation.
She hadn’t expected me to be gentle. I’d already thrown her off-kilter.
“I’m not afraid,” she responded quietly, almost in a whisper, like she had something to prove to herself and to me.
I moved my thumb from her cheek to her full lower lip. I wanted to bite it then. I could feel my cock jump with excitement at the thought, but I restrained myself. There would be plenty of time for that when she was tied to the punishment cross, on display for the entire camp to watch as we disciplined her tomorrow.
We had to make an example of her. Commander Strohass demanded it.
She’d be one sorry little human by the end of the day tomorrow.
But until then, I wanted to get to know her a bit better. She was a worthy opponent to go up against and I looked forward to the process of training her to be a breeder. Inside her small frame, she was a firecracker. Even now, her stormy eyes held mine, calm, steady, fierce. Braver than I expected.
A little human warrior.
“You’ve been on the run for a long time, Kira,” I said.
“I have,” she answered, her voice unsure. She was analyzing me now, trying to assess where I stood, if I was going to hurt her, or take her against her will.
No. I wouldn’t do any of that, at least not now.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Aedan circling, judging, deciding when to strike. In order to keep her attention on me, I raised my other hand and cupped the right side of her face. I raised her chin a bit and she didn’t fight me then.
A good sign.
I heard Jax sit down behind me in one of the chairs beside the table. Zaavyr crossed his arms and simply watched us with curiosity.
“If you submit to us, things will go a lot easier for you. Understand that this is the way of our people, it isn’t anything personal for us. We need females. We needed to take you,” I whispered, careful to keep my voice quiet and nonthreatening.