Alien Conquest: (The Warrior's Prize) An Alien SciFi Romance (7 page)

“No, domina,” Alaina muttered. “Not just.”

“Well, get up. Both of you.”

Alaina got to her feet and Vega did the same beside her. She knew she was supposed to keep her eyes low, but instead she watched Lennai look around and take it all in, watched how her expression remained so empty and neutral but her eyes darted all over, until they finally settled on Alaina herself. They looked at each other and Alaina felt a spark of defiance in her heart.

“I can do more than just stand around like a trophy,” she told the domina, before she could think better of it.

She heard Nyssa try to swallow a gasp.

Lennai arched her eyebrows dubiously, but didn’t reply immediately. Instead she just gazed back at Alaina, looking her over. And then she smiled, but there was nothing kind in it that Alaina could see.

“Well,” she finally said. “We’ll see about that. Since you are apparently so
skilled
, why don’t you work in the barracks in the morning? You can tend to the cursii after their games. Tend their wounds.”

“Fine,” Alaina said. “I will.”

Lennai’s eyes hardened. “And if any of them die, so do you.” Before Alaina could say anything about how ridiculous
that
was, Lennai clapped her hands and went on. “Return her to her quarters.”

Guards grabbed Alaina by the arms, removing the security bracelet Nyssa had given her, and started dragging her back up the stairs. She looked over her shoulder, watching as Vega bowed to the domina and then turned to go back down the corridor and deeper into the barracks.

Nyssa looked up, meeting Alaina’s eyes behind Lennai’s back, and her expression was fierce. And furious. Alaina knew that they weren’t done with each other, but she’d be damned if she was going to let some petty, jealous girl get her killed in this place. Freedom might have been temporarily off the table, but her plan remained the same. Make herself useful, make herself trusted, and then get the hell away from this place.

Of course, she had no idea what the morning would bring. She wasn’t a trauma surgeon, and it was an
Arena,
which conjured up images of carnage she wasn’t sure she could handle. But she was good at her job, and the physiology of most of these aliens seemed to be close enough to humans she could do basic medical assessments on them. Right? She let the guards haul her along, back to her room, mind spiraling wildly from confidence towards panic as she thought about what awaited her in the morning.

And underneath all of that, quite without her bidding, she kept thinking about Vega. There had been in something in the way he looked at her, when he’d had her back to the wall, for just that brief moment before he told her how stupid she was.

But Alaina wasn’t stupid. She didn’t know much about this world and these creatures, but she knew she’d seen something in the cursu’s eyes as they’d looked into hers. Something fierce, but not cruel. Powerful, but with a gentleness underneath it. Could a professional killer, a warrior, possibly hold onto those softer qualities and still win in the Arena? She got the impression, at least, that Vega won a
lot
. But for all his strength and intimidating demeanor, she got the sense that there was ever so much more than just a fighter beneath the surface. And she found herself wanting to discover it all.

Once the domina left the barracks, Vega went to his room and sat down on his cot, unwrapping the bandage on his arm a little so he could peek at the donara’s work. It was not as clean or precise as one of the droids might have done, but then, the domina would not have spared Vega a droid for such a wound. As such, it might have festered and continued to bleed. Now he thought he could still fight without it causing him much trouble. Lohar was another matter. He would no doubt wake in time for the games in the morning, and be more determined than ever to see Vega fall. Vega would have to be watching his own back as well as his front, which wasn’t unusual but it could be exhausting all the same, having to be ever vigilant even when it came to supposed allies. At least the domina seemed more annoyed than anything else. He could survive her annoyance, but few survived her rage.

He sprawled back on the cot, an arm tucked beneath his head, and stared up at the ceiling. Even when he closed his eyes, however, all he saw were flashing glances of the donara’s face. Such a strange, fragile-looking creature. So...
plain
. No
qamalai
, the word for the scales that decorated his flesh, and no antlers like the Jiayi. Not even the natural slickness of an Ankaa’s skin, hard to hold onto and glossy with moisture.

The donara’s people had no natural defenses, it seemed, nor any natural way of indicating their rank or beauty. No way to judge from the outside what sort of heart and mind might reside within. Vega found this confounding, but also distracting. He’d already been surprised by her, already had his hands on her, and he wanted more. But he had to put those thoughts from his mind, because the games would bring the morning around with a swiftness, and he couldn’t let himself be distracted. That way led to a short fall onto bloody sands.

He managed to sleep, eventually —fitfully— and only for a short time, for the donara still haunted his mind’s eye. In those dreams, she ran across the sands of the Arena. She broke the chains binding his wrists to the Arena itself. And he chased her all the while, trying desperately to catch her but always missing, always catching handfuls of air instead. He’d had dreams like that before, but the things he’d been chasing through the Arena had never been person-shaped. He’d chased the image of his home planet or keys to unlock the chains that held him, never a single individual. And when he woke, hearing the tone that rang through the barracks calling the cursu to rise for the games, he couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow things had changed. Just that quickly, something was different. But he couldn’t have said what.

Vega tried to shake off that feeling in the baths with the other cursii, as they scrubbed down and cleaned themselves for the games. Bathari chattered endlessly about his anticipated glory, but Vega noticed that Lohar was not in the baths. He wondered if he would even participate in the games after what had happened the night before. The other cursii glanced at Vega askance, so the events of the night must have spread already. It was a testament to Bathari’s loyalty that he didn’t bring it up, didn’t press Vega for details, especially on a day of games. But Vega felt the curiosity and suspicion fogging up the room around him all the same.

Then, as they filed into line at the gate that led from the Chara Palace to the Arena itself, Vega saw Lohar. As the highest ranking of House Chara’s cursii, Vega himself stood last in line. To his surprise, he spotted the red scales, and saw Lohar first in line. Not the best and certainly not the worst, Lohar should have been somewhere in the middle, not the fore. This was further punishment, it seemed, and Vega was surprised that the domina would so shame him. He’d gotten his ass kicked and Vega would have thought that would be enough. Apparently not.

Lohar turned his head, and their eyes met.

He bared his teeth a little and then looked forward again, and Vega knew that another attack would come. Maybe not today in the games, maybe not even soon, but Lohar would come for him again. It was just a matter of how patient the man could be.

Then the marching tone rang through the barracks, the gate slid aside, and they marched through the tunnel to the Arena. Vega tried to put all else from his mind, and failed miserably.

Alaina barely slept, and every time she started to drift off, she jerked awake, thinking she could hear footsteps outside her room, in the corridor, and thinking it was Nyssa. Even though her room had a door, she couldn’t lock it, and that reptilian girl made her skin crawl now that she knew Nyssa was out to do her harm. She didn’t really expect her to try and smother her in her sleep, but those were the images her mind conjured as she hovered in the limbo between sleeping and waking. When she heard the bell tones in the morning and the monitor in her room flickered to life with an alert to rise and anticipate the dresser slaves, she sat up, groggy and exhausted and agonized to find it had not all just been a nightmare.

But she didn’t have much time to drown in it.

Within minutes, a gaggle of slaves filed into the room, pulling her up off the bed and deftly removing her clothes. She was so tired she didn’t feel the same surge of discomfort and shame as the first time someone else had undressed her, in the baths. This morning she barely saw their faces, these snickering women, she just knew that Nyssa wasn’t among them and was grateful for that.

They touched images on the monitor and panels in the wall opened that Alaina hadn’t even realized were there. Sprays and spritzes and soft cloth rags appeared in the slaves’ hands and they rubbed her down and cleaned her skin, brushing her hair and then braiding it neatly back from her face. She expected another gauzy gown but this time they helped her into a full jump suit, skin tight, made of some kind of leather but heavier, almost like armor. Then they slid boots onto her feet and took her by the arms, walking her out of the little room and into the corridors of the slaves quarters. Through the pair of sliding, locked, double doors to the gate that led up to the main palace floors, and into the grand foyer she’d passed through with Lennai only the day before.

And Lennai was waiting for her in the foyer, dressed in a sumptuous gown of fiery orange and gold mimicking the wild color of her red hair. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and smiling as she watched Alaina marched towards her, the expression full of teeth.

“Well, you look practically ready to fight yourself,” Lennai cooed.

The slaves let go of Alaina and dispersed, and she stood looking back at the domina, eyelids heavy, but her focus sharpened slowly.

She wondered if they had coffee in space.

“Good morning, domina,” she said.

“Yes, I think it might be,” Lennai said, nodding. She gestured for Alaina to come forward and turned towards the palace doors. “Come on. You’ll have first meal with me, so you can see the Arena and get an understanding of it all, and then you’ll to the barracks to take care of my fighters.”

Alaina hesitated. “Are you sure that’s what you want of me, domina?”

Lennai arched an eyebrow. “
You
volunteered to be this tool,” she said, “when you broke the rules last night. You don’t seem pleased with being donara, so this is your opportunity to be something else. If you do well, perhaps I’ll select another donara and you can stay taking care of the cursii. You see? I’m being very selfless, trying to find a place for you that is pleasing.”

“Thank you, domina,” Alaina muttered.

“A true donara would be seated beside me during the games. You could have been given a place of honor, but your misbehavior landed you here. Remember that.”

“Yes, domina.”

“Now if you
fail
today,” Lennai went on, as they passed beneath the high, arching doorways, “that will put me in a very uncomfortable position. So do your best. Don’t disappoint me. And I will not disappoint you.”

“Yes, domina.”

Lennai stopped on the steps, turning to look at Alaina.

Alaina came up short, surprised.

“Vega is my favorite,” Lennai said plainly, her eyes meeting Alaina’s. “The cursu you helped last night. I favor him above all others and that’s no secret. He’s our best fighter, our bravest, and he brings this house much glory.”

“That’s...good,” Alaina said, confused.

“Glory,” Lennai went on. “That keeps the systems at peace. We wage wars in the Arena instead of across the stars. It’s much more civilized.”

Alaina didn’t think there was anything civilized about it, but she knew nothing she said was going to make a dent on Lennai. “Of course, domina.”

“So I don’t mind saying that if it comes down to it, I prefer you to treat Vega before all others. Understand?”

Alaina sure did, and she felt a twist of unexpected jealousy knot up her stomach. Lennai was clearly
in love
with the violet-eyed cursu Vega, and Alaina didn’t know exactly why that bothered her. Well, she knew why, but she didn’t like it. She didn’t bother telling Lennai that she probably would have tried to save Vega first anyway, because she felt like she owed him. She felt more than that, but the debt was all she could rationally acknowledge to herself just yet. The rest was too unsettling.
All
of this was unsettling.

This time, Alaina was invited through the curtains and into the small phaeton with Lennai, where she sat across from her as they traveled through the market to the Arena’s main entrance. Lennai talked the entire time and Alaina tried to retain as much of it as she could, but not only was it all so foreign, she was also distracted by thoughts of the bloodshed to come. It was akin to the anticipation she’d felt every night, climbing into the ambulance, knowing the calls would come. But this was also different, because suddenly her own life was on the line. And she had no idea how to treat
alien
wounds.

She stopped listening to Lennai entirely as the phaeton passed beneath the gigantic gated archways of the Arena proper. The phaeton’s curtains tittered aside in a breeze, and Alaina stared with wide eyes at the giant crowd amassed at one of the gate towers, lined up to enter the space. At the massive portcullis raised to allow the masters of the Arena to entire separate from the rabble, whole lanes of phaetons just like theirs, flanked by guards. She could hear music in the distance, growing louder as they proceeded down the lane, some kind of brass instruments trumpeting with great pomp for the start of the games.

Inside the Arena was a different matter.

Alaina had known it would be gigantic, but so far as she could tell, it could have been its own space station. Maybe it had been once, and the rest of this station with all its separate alien parts, had been built around it, attached piece by piece. Just inside the gate, they exited the phaetons and Alaina followed Lennai through a tall archway which she assumed was the entrance to the Errai section of the Arena itself. Each race had its own section for spectators, just like the station itself. And within each section, each of the great houses had its own smaller section. Alaina saw the red and gold of Chara as she followed Lennai through corridor after labyrinthine corridor, and then to a grand set of marble stairs to another locked gate, not unlike the one inside the Chara palace that separated the barracks from the slaves’ quarters.