“Mine.”
He repeats the single word.
He is handsome and wildly attractive, but he is not intelligent. I am almost certain that what I’m mistaking for speech is nothing but vestigial grunts. They seem to correlate with basic desires, but that doesn’t mean he knows what he’s saying. There are parrots who can mimic speech, it’s very possible that’s what he’s doing. He certainly doesn’t seem to acknowledge or understand anything I am saying.
“I go!” I exclaim, pointing toward the sky. “I go now!”
“Mine.”
I take a deep breath. I am not going to be able to break his grasp. He is too strong. I have to somehow reason with this creature who looks like a man but is almost certainly nothing like one mentally.
The hand that was on my jaw moves to my hair, pushes strands of it back from my face. He repeats the word in a soft rumbling tone, his expression almost gentle.
“Mine.”
“Mine.” I try repeating his word. Maybe that will work. I point to myself when I say the word, indicating that I belong to me.
“Mine,” he growls. The word is starting to sound meaningless now, and it may as well be for how far it is getting us.
“I have to go,” I say. “I’m not supposed to be down here. If I get caught on this planet, they’re going to freeze me. So you have to let me go. Please.”
He stares at me blankly and I could cry. He doesn’t understand. He’ll never understand. He’s not a person like me, he’s a devolved form of human, a dumb animal. The sheer despair hits me with great weight. The connection I thought I felt with him in those moments of pleasure must have been an illusion.
“Home,” he says, sliding his hands away from my body, but keeping his grasp on my arm.
“My home is up there!” I point up at the sky.
“Home,” he replies more firmly. He starts to walk in a direction that would take us away from the remains of my shuttle. I can’t allow this. I start fishing in the remnants of my clothing. The legs of my suit are still on. The waist is flapping about my upper thighs, and the belt that holds my zapper is still there. I fumble for it and somehow find it. Fate pushes it into my hand, and I grasp it, knowing that if I get him a second time, there will not be a chance for a third. I can’t take another one of his whippings.
I jab the little device toward his back, but this time he sees my hand moving toward him. He slaps my hand hard enough to make me drop the device, then bends to pick it up himself. For a moment, he is distracted, his grip loosens. I break free and I dash away from him as quickly as I can—but not quickly enough. He is on me in a matter of strides, grabbing me up again.
I try to cover my ass, anticipating the pain he will unleash on it, but this time there are no slaps. He simply hauls me up over his shoulder, and I am done for. I don’t have the energy to contest his possession. I am nearly entirely naked, my suit only held on by my boots.
Sticky with his seed, covered in his sweat and cum, I am abducted. He takes me away from my ship in big long strides, heading into the forest where the women emerged earlier, and where they fled thereafter. This is very, very bad. I need to get back to the shuttle, call my ship down and get back into orbit. I need to resist him. I try pushing up off his shoulders. His musculature is absolutely unyielding.
“Let me go! Put me down! Please! You got what you wanted! Let me go!”
My pleading has no effect whatsoever on him. He carries me shrieking and crying from the smoldering vestiges of everything I have ever known.
Chapter Three
Zion
We saw the star girl come in a blaze of fire across the sky, just as the elders foretold. Her light made the world bright. She appeared as a new star in the belt of the hunter—and we saw her fall.
The stories say the girl from the stars will bring war and death. She is a danger. I was not sent to mate her. I was sent to kill her. But when I saw her, I knew I could not do it. The females would have. The same features that made my desire strong were the ones that made them ferociously angry.
If I take her back to the tribe, they will call for her death. If I let her go, she will be hunted down. I know that there are others coming with spears sharpened, rocks ready to crush her tender extremities. She would be sacrificed to the red moon and the crimson sea atop Mount Ion.