Alien Romance: Stranded With The Alien Assassin: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 3) (7 page)

“What?” D’Anil asked.

She shook her head. “This elevator reminds me of this old movie. A really old one,” she mused, “My grandma had me watch it with her once. Some guy with a candy factory and a glass elevator that went every direction.”

“What’s a factory?” he asked, and Jayne realized that they wouldn’t have those. Not out in the middle of the desert.

She pressed her lips together, trying to think of a better way to explain it. She was grateful for the distraction anyways. The elevator didn’t move as fast as it did in that movie, and she didn’t remember it shaking as much as this one did.

“It’s like a large farm,” she told him, “Except it’s not outside. It’s mostly all in one giant building, where everyone makes stuff. Back in the day, people used to work in them. Now, it’s all machinery and a few people that run the machines.”

D’Anil nodded, then moments later, just as the elevator stopped. “What’s a ‘farm’?”

Jayne groaned softly.
Right. Desert
. “We’ll do the vocab lesson after we get Sophie.”

Wherever they were, it didn’t indicate what floor they were on. When the doors opened up, it simply led to a small foyer adorned in red. The walls were soft, covered in some sort of velvet. “So he has a separate place he keeps his slaves?”

“
Slave
. Just one,” D’Anil corrected.

Jayne looked at him sardonically as they got to the door. “I know I’m not supposed to ask questions, but you seem to want to defend this guy pretty quickly.”

D’Anil shrugged, twisting the knob and pulling. “Guess I’m used to it. It’s what he hires me for.”

His job was still a mystery to her. Jayne didn’t see how security detail for slaves could help whoever this politician was, besides the fact that he purchased them. What else did D’Anil do for him? Was he simply a devoted bodyguard? If so, what were the “bigger” jobs that he was missing out on? She wanted to ask, but she couldn’t. And with the door open, Jayne had something else to take care of.

“Sophie?” she called out. D’Anil stood behind her keeping the door open with one foot while his hands moved along the walls to find a light. “Sophie, it’s me, Jayne!”

Finally, he did find a light. With their surroundings no longer bathed in darkness, Jayne was able to see everything. It was a small apartment, and an expensive-looking one at that.

The walls were all soft to the touch as well, covered in the same red velvet as the room outside. To the left, there was a small kitchenette, and she could see a platter of sweets sitting on the counter. Her eyes searched frantically over the fancy furniture, trying to find a flash of orange from Sophie’s hair. Everything here suggested that she must have been comfortable in the past month, but she didn’t trust it. Not when her friend was missing.

“Jayne?” a small voice asked.

She followed the noise to an open doorway, and Jayne could see a bed behind her. But there was Sophie, hanging in the doorway. She was completely naked, her hands covering her breasts and in between her legs.

“Sophie,” Jayne breathed. Happy to have her back, Jayne couldn’t help but feel a little shame at the fact that this young girl was definitely used in a way that Jayne hadn’t been for the past month. She didn’t care how obvious it was, scanning the girl’s arms and legs and torso for any bruising, but she found none. There was only one thing different about her. “Your hair…”

Jayne moved forward, Sophie backing away slightly, cowering into the darkness of her bedroom. “He… Had me dye it,” she whispered. Jayne frowned, her fingers brushing over the ends of her hair, now a bleach blonde.

“I’m so sorry, Sophie…” she murmured. She hugged the girl tightly, pulling away with tears brimming in her eyes. “Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

It was the first time Sophie noticed D’Anil, and her blush deepened at her lack of clothing. “But… I… He told… Told me I wasn’t allowed to leave the bed… He’s going to get so mad if he realizes-“

“Jayne, we have to get going,” D’Anil interrupted, avoiding making eye contact with the naked girl, focusing on the green of Jayne’s eyes instead when she turned back to look at him, “Amara can only keep the door open for so long.”

“Amara’s working with him,” Sophie whimpered, “You see? He’ll
know
!”

“I don’t care if he knows; he’s never going to see you again; do you understand?” Jayne pushed Amara forward into the bedroom. “Seriously, get dressed. We have to
go
.”

But Sophie showed a moment of stubbornness. “I saw what they did to Meta. I saw it in the newspapers-“

“That’s not going to happen to us,” she explained, interrupting her. Jayne motioned back to D’Anil. “We have him to help us. D’Anil will take us back through the desert, to the military base, and then we’re going
home
.”

Her voice dropped, her eyes pleading. She knew D’Anil would not wait much longer, that none of them could really wait at all. But Jayne didn’t want to leave without Sophie. She didn’t want to break her promise. “Don’t you want to go home, Sophie? To your friends in London and your parents and little brothers in Blackpool? Don’t you think they miss you and want you home now?”

Sophie’s eyes widened, becoming wet with tears as well. Jayne could see that she still felt afraid to leave, but there was a moment when those blue eyes remembered who she really was, not the person that her master made her into.

“Okay… Okay, I’ll go,” she said, turning back into the room.

Jayne looked to D’Anil with an affirming nod. He surprised her with a gentle smile and a nod back. Their journey was just starting, sure, but she had him to guide her and was fulfilling her promise. Even if Meta died before she could see it come to fruition.

Chapter Seven

Leaving the capitol building wasn’t hard to do, not when D’Anil knew exactly where to go. The only trouble they had was with Sophie’s speed. She lagged behind, stressing over what to bring with her, what to wear.

Jayne knew she was distressed and tried to work with her, but it was clear that D’Anil wasn’t used to working with people so much. He grew visibly frustrated with her, ready to drop Sophie back off before they’d even reached the bottom floor and re-entered the streets of Dlahik again.

“Can you at least pretend to like her?” Jayne asked as they moved through the streets, “Give her
one
compliment.”

D’Anil sighed. “She does better with shutting up than you?” Jayne couldn’t help but shove him slightly, causing D’Anil to let out a small chuckle, though he tried to hide it by clearing his throat. “Put your goddamn head down, will you?”

He was right though. Sophie was much better at playing slave. She’d been submissive before it even started, Jayne remembered. So emotional as a roommate on the ship. It was only a pity that she hadn’t gotten someone like D’Anil, someone who just wanted a maid and something pretty to look at when he got home from work.

Jayne didn’t have to ask to know that the man she’d been with had done things to Sophie that she wouldn’t forget, and Meta’s words came back to her, the ones the warrior princess uttered as Sophie smiled and beamed on stage.
She will have to do more than just smile and nodding in thirty days
.

They exited the underground city the same way they came. D’Anil explained that the main access was too risky, and normally he went through the lobby of Sophie’s owner. But that would be impossible with Amara working the front desk still, and him with two slaves following closely behind him out into the desert.

“We travel at night,” D’Anil told them as they followed him through the back roads of the town, all the way to the outer edges of the cave, “It’s sun season right now, too hot for anyone to be outside during the day and survive.”

“What about those people that live on the surface?” Jayne asked. She remembered passing by a few different parts of town that were still inhabited, inhabited by people covered in sand and grime and living in abandoned homes.

D’Anil shrugged. “There’s not enough room for everyone,” he explained simply, “The ones that get stuck outside try to survive… But they rarely do. Only a couple dozen will make it to the cooldown, if that. We’ll need to hide out in their hovels, though, the empty ones. And if there’s any leftover clothes, try to take it. They’re built to protect against the desert heat, and you’ll blend in more.”

That was the last advice he gave the both of them, and even then Jayne questioned it. She was wearing light clothes already and was sure that the desert heat wouldn’t be as bad. New York was not the hottest place on Earth by far, but she’d been to Hawaii during the summer, where it was hot even as the rain showered down on her young head. They went up familiar steps and as they reached one of the homes in disguise, Jayne could feel the heat emanating from the surface. That was when she started to re-think her outfit.

Being above ground, Jayne realized how
wet
the cave air had been. Outside, it felt almost crisp except for the fact that it was so hot. She wanted to take off her dress immediately and strip down to her shorts and tank top that she had on, though the dress only covered a little bit more than the shorts and tank top did. How D’Anil was able to handle his leathers, even with the short sleeves that he had now that he was stripping off his coat, was a wonder to her.

The little house was a different one than the one she’d come in through. It looked almost near identical except for the childish drawings of a family drawn on the walls, smudged in black with something that looked like charcoal. It was night outside, much to her surprise, but Jayne was glad for it. They had to get moving before Sophie’s owner realized she was gone.

D’Anil seemed to have a similar idea. He only stopped long enough to grab a bag from an upstairs room in the house. It had four water bottles. “There’s a few of these I stash around the desert,” he told them, “A lot of my work is in the Outer Circle, and I like the be prepared.”

Jayne smiled, grabbing a water bottle, though she didn’t drink from it. She knew she’d need to save this for when she really needed it. “Look at you. I don’t even have to ask the questions anymore,” she teased, causing D’Anil to snatch the water bottle back.

“Don’t think I didn’t bring a gag for you, Jayne,” he warned, though she thought she detected a playfulness in his eyes. It was difficult in the dark.

They started a relentless pace, just as bad as the pace the smugglers set when they first dragged everyone to Dlahik. Jayne tried to keep up as best as she could and tried to pull Sophie along with her.

But her flats, though they helped much more with the heat than any of the other shoes she had, were starting to rub against her feet in all the wrong ways. Her legs ached, not used to so much exercise. She used to do quite a lot on Earth, had to, but that almost seemed like another lifetime ago, and her body felt it.

By the time the sun was starting to rise, the Imdali sky turning from black to lighter and lighter shades of blue, Jayne was praying for D’Anil to stop them. She was covered in sweat, she had blisters on the sole of her left foot, and her lungs burned for air, her stomach aching for food. “How can it be so hot at night?” she gasped.

“Welcome to the summer season,” D’Anil muttered, who looked completely untouched by the heat himself. He narrowed his eyes and pointed to a group of abandoned houses in the distance. “There. We’ll rest there. Hide anything that looks expensive. We don’t want thieves following us.”

“Thieves?” Sophie asked, her own breathing labored. Once the glittering city of Dlahik disappeared, the blonde seemed to ease up a bit more. Out of sight, out of mind. “We have to worry about thieves too?”

“Not if you hide your shit,” D’Anil replied in a monotone voice, glaring at her.

Sophie swallowed and looked down at her clothes.
Everything
she had looked expensive. While Jayne’s blue dress was a nice silk, so was Sophie’s, though it was a light pink with gentle, white swirls sewn into the design. With her blonde hair and blue eyes, she looked perfectly angelic. “He only gave me really nice things. I don’t- I don’t have anything else.”

Jayne looked at her friend, a thought popping into her head. “D’Anil, give her your jacket. We can hide all the fancy stuff under that dirty thing, right?”

“Hey, this
dirty thing
is my
favorite jacket
!” he protested, patting the old, faithful piece of clothing that was currently folded over his bag, “You know how many dust storms this thing protected me from? How many knives have tried getting through this?”

The brunette woman raised a single eyebrow, putting a hand on her hip. “Are you getting emotional over a
jacket
?”

He didn’t give her a response after that, just tossing the leather over to Sophie. The blonde turned up her nose slightly at the smell, but she slipped it over her shoulders anyways. It did the opposite of her pink slip of a dress. While she was tall, she was thin, and it almost looked like she was swimming in the brown jacket.

Luckily, there were only two people within the small cluster of homes. The first was an old, blind woman named Gruha and her young grandson named Tahiq. They kept to themselves, reminding Jayne of D’Anil. They didn’t even ask for their names, only giving their own because she directly asked. After that, they shut their door and didn’t say a word to the three.

“That’s not even their real names,” D’Anil said as he shut the door of their own home behind them. “Home” was a very loose interpretation of what the hole really was. It was a skeleton of a home, but it was enough to protect them from the sun outside. Jayne shined away from the lights beaming in from the space in between the boards on the windows.

“Why would they lie?” she asked, throwing her bag onto a couch. She briefly glanced at Sophie, who was already passed out on the ground, D’Anil’s jacket tucked under her head for a pillow.

“Why would they tell the truth?” he asked, “They don’t know you. They don’t know what your agenda is, who you are… And you’re much too clean to be a true Outsider.”

Jayne made her way up the stairs, finding a bedroom of sorts. There was an old cot, covered in dust. Her nose wrinkled. Maybe Sophie had the right idea for sleeping on the floor.

She turned to find that D’Anil had followed, standing out in the hallway and inspecting the rest of the place. “There’s only one bedroom,” she commented, trying to sound casual. They shared a bed in his home as well, but nothing ever came of it. Sometimes, Jayne would wake up to her body curled into his, but it never lasted long. Either she would grow nervous and shy away or he would wake up and move when he realized the position.

“Are you offering to share the floor?” D’Anil asked, pointing at the bed, “You’ve been traveling in dust and sand all day, yet you look afraid to sleep in it.”

Jayne waved her hand. “There might be… Bugs, I don’t know.”

D’Anil smirked, but moved to the bed nonetheless. He plopped down on the mattress, the bed creaking from beneath him. “There’s bugs in the desert too, but you ran to the desert anyways.”

She sat down beside him, picking up his challenge. “I’m not running to the desert. I’m running to my home,” Jayne corrected, “The desert just happens to be along the way.”

“The desert is my home.”

“And the apartment in Dlahik is…?”

“A place to clean myself off when the layer of grime gets too thick on my skin.”

Jayne laughed softly. “You’re disgusting.”

D’Anil found himself laughing as well. “You’ve never minded it before.” Their eyes met, and their laughter stopped. Jayne realized, maybe, what he was trying to say. How she was running to the desert, or to home. There was an underlying meaning, one that they both knew but had never said directly. She was running away from
him
.

“Living with you wasn’t so bad,” Jayne told him, her voice low. She felt it was important for him to know that. She appreciated the fact that he wasn’t like the others, that he didn’t beat her like Meta’s owner or try to change her and manipulate her into becoming his own fantasy like Sophie’s did. “Your messes were less annoying to deal with than me talking all the time, I’m sure.”

“Probably,” D’Anil replied, shrugging softly, “Now you can go back to cleaning up kids’ messes as, what, a teacher?”

She hesitated, opening her mouth. But Jayne stopped. “Yeah,” she said, with a nod, “It’s weird. I didn’t realize how much I missed work until just now. All my co-workers… Not like you know, though. You always work alone.”

“In my line of work, it’s better that way.” And Jayne believed him. D’Anil didn’t sound sad about it, didn’t seem to care that he could never really get close to anyone at his jobs.

“Sophie told me who her owner was,” Jayne said suddenly, looking up at him, “She said his name is Alem, the Chief of Justice. He’s the leader of Dlahik, isn’t he? The
actual
leader, not just some politician?”

He didn’t answer for a while. And even when he did, it wasn’t a confirmation. But he didn’t say she was wrong either. “Her Master could have told her a lot of things-“

“She said she knew who you were, who I was owned by,” Jayne went on.
He won’t protect his employer when he knows the confidentiality agreement only works one way
. “He told her that she was lucky to be with him, that she could have ended up with a man like D’Anil Troga. I didn’t even know your last name until she said it.”

“Jayne-“

“He told her that I would be lucky if I made it out of your care alive. He said you were a callous man, that you don’t care about anyone except for yourself. She told him that you’ve killed people for him before, and that with one wave of his coin purse, you would kill Sophie too.”

She felt his hands ball into fists, twisting on the mattress. Jayne looked at him, studying his features, at his strong cheekbones and the way his dark hair fell in waves to frame it… But he refused to look at her. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Three reasons,” Jayne said, “First, you can stop trying to keep his name from me. Second, you can try being nicer to Sophie since she’s scared of you. Third, I wanted to give you a chance to explain your job.”

D’Anil stood up, hands raking through his hair. “There’s nothing to explain. There’s nothing to justify, Jayne. When Alem needs something, I do it. If he needs someone taken out, I take them out. If he needs me to protect the smugglers and our economy’s biggest business venture, then… Yes. I do it. And I don’t regret doing it. I don’t feel bad, if that’s what you’re wanting to hear.”

“If you don’t feel bad, then why didn’t you tell me before?” Jayne asked, “Why’d you hide it from me? Do you think I would have cared?”

“Oh, you mean the girl who’s on some justice crusade against every single person that’s wronged her? Yeah!”

“My
justice crusade
is against people who do wrong against
hundreds of women a year
! Do you know how many people go missing in my town, how many young women? The last time I checked, it was an average of fifty a month. That’s more than one woman a day, in just one town, on just one planet. What about-“